Batumi
Viswanathan Anand put it past Markus Ragger in a brilliant positional game as the Indian men’s team cruised to a 3.5-0.5 victory over Austria in the second round of the 43rd Chess Olympiad.

Back to the Olympiad after a gap of 12 years, Anand was precise in calculation and brilliant in judgement, giving away nothing to Ragger who was all at sea defending a difficult position out of the opening on Tuesday evening.
P Harikrishna, on the second board, benefitted from a late blunder by Valentin Dragnev after Vidit Gujrathi ensured an Indian lead with a fluent victory over Andreas Diermair. On the fourth board, B Adhiban was held to a draw by Peter Schreiner.

With their second 3.5-0.5 victory, the Indian men remain in joint lead on four points with 40 other teams and will next take on Canada. The Indian women scored a 4-0 victory, defeating Venezuela on all four boards. Grandmaster D Harika was stretched but not hassled by Sarai Carolina Sachez Castillo. Tania Sachdev played a clean game to outwit Amelia Hernandez Bonilla. Eesha Karavade was in her element against Tairu Manuela Rovira Contreras and national champion Padmini Rout defeated Corals Patino Garcia to complete the whitewash. With 33 teams leading in this section, the Indian women will be next facing Serbia, who might pose a better challenge.
Top-seeded Russia became the first major casualty in the women’s section, losing to Uzbekistan by a narrow 1.5-2.5 margin. The Uzbek women did well to hold the first three boards and then pulled the plug on the last board as Russian Natalija Pogonina was outdone by Nodira Nadirjanova.

With his minor pieces better than his opponent’s, Anand made a foray on the queenside and despite swapping of pieces at regular intervals the advantage for him remained intact. Ragger resigned on the 47th move when he faced loss of a pawn.

“He probably could have resisted better,” Anand said after the game, citing some important moments where black might have equalised with accurate moves.