Chess Olympiad: Indian men edge closer to gold after big win over Iran

Budapest: The men's team from India defeated Iran with a commanding score of 3.5-0.5 on Thursday, staking their claim to the gold medal in the 45th Chess Olympiad's open division. The men from India increased their lead to 16 points from a possible 16.

World number four Arjun Erigaisi started the rampage with his black pieces and crashed through the defences of Bardiya Daneshwar who proved no match against a highly skilled display by the Indian.

Following Arjun’s win, World Championship challenger D Gukesh put it across Parham Maghsoodloo with black pieces, swindling the Iranian towards the end of the first time-control.

R Praggnanandhaa played out a draw with Amin Tabatabai to make sure of an Indian victory but Vidit Gujrathi had other plans as he outclassed Idani Pouya in all departments of the game to give another huge-margin victory to the team.

For Arjun, this was another step forward towards the 2800 rating mark as he took his personal tally to a remarkable 7.5 points from eight games.

In live ratings now, Arjun is now at 2793 points and if he does cross the 2800 mark, he will only be the 16th player ever in history and only the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to do so.

Taking a cue from Arjun, Gukesh made sure he kept closing in also and his victory took him to 2785 rating points. This is the first time ever that there are two Indians in the top five of the world rankings.

Arjun created early complications again going for the reverse Benoni with his black pieces. Daneshwar fell for some tactical tricks in the middle game and did not recover.

Gukesh also won with black and it was another Queen pawn game wherein the Indian chose to play the Dubov variation. Maghsoodloo went for some unwarranted complications and was caught off guard as the clocks ticked away in the middle game.

Soon the Iranian parted with a piece for a handful of pawns but fell prey to an easy tactical stroke that ended the game.

Vidit Gujrathi went for the Sozin variation against the Sicilian defense by Pouya and his attack was simply overwhelming while Praggnanandhaa took things easy to ward off any serious counterplay by Tabatabai.

In the women’s section, the Indian team was trailing 0-1 but held promising positions that could give the top-seeded women's team a 2.5-1.6 victory.

With PTI inputs