India's medal hopes at
Chess Olympiad diminish

International Master Surya Shekhar Ganguly moved a step closer to his final Grandmaster norm even as his team failed to get past 33rd seeds Macedonia, ending up with a 2-2 draw, in the 11th round of the 35th Chess Olympiad in Bled, Slovenia, on Thursday.

The Indian women though brought some cheer to the camp as they held seventh seeds Yugoslavia.

But hopes for a medal slowly diminished for the Indian teams, with only three more rounds remaining in this 14-round competition.

With 26 points, the men's team is in joint 17th position while the women's team, with 19 points, is placed 11th.

The race for the title heated up with top seeded Russia putting it across Germany 3.5-0.5 to widen its lead over second seeds Hungary by two points.

The world's highest rated player Garry Kasparov led from the front and defeated Christopher Lutz in a Sicilian Scheveningen with black pieces.

Hungary remained in sole second position on 30 points after defeating England 2.5-1.5 while Germany is a distant third, on 28 points.

The title race in the women's section sprang back to life as Poland defeated leaders Georgia by an incredible 2.5-0.5 margin. Despite the loss, Georgia (24.5) maintained its position atop the table but the lead margin receded to just a half point as China (24) scored a 2.5-0.5 victory over Romania in this round.

Russia were third on 22.5 points.

Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman brightened her medal chances by continuing to win on the top board against Yugoslavia's WGM Natasa Bojkovic.

Playing with black pieces, she not only had no problems equalising but boldly went in for a winning attempt by opening a blocked position. This helped her to penetrate white's position rook and create a passed pawn. In an attempt to create counter, white went in for a wrong knight sacrifice and lost in 42 moves. Vijayalakshmi now has seven points after her hat-trick of wins.

Aarthie, who has had a poor tournament so far, went in for a early draw offer with the white pieces against her higher rated rival Svetlana Prudnikova.

Facing the Sicilian defence, Arthie could not make much progress out of the opening and proposed a draw on her 17th turn which was gladly accepted by her opponent.

Swati Ghate, who had the black pieces on the third board against WGM Irina Chelushkina, lost in 56 moves after being an exchange down.

Swati, who had very less space for her pieces, went in for the exchange sacrifice to try and wriggle out of the situation. However, her experienced opponent had no problems in encashing the point.

GM Abhijit Kunte appeared to have some winning chances in his game against Nikola Mitkov. Playing the English opening, Kunte, who a obtained pawn majority on the kingside rightly exchanged pieces to head for a rook and pawn ending, where he obtained an extra pawn. But in spite of his tenacious spirit, he could manage a draw after a long battle lasting 87 moves.

IM R B Ramesh, playing on the fourth board, won over Trajce Nedev when the later blundered a knight in a rook and piece ending.

Behind the black pieces, Ramesh obtained comfortable play in the Moscow variation of the Sicilian defence and won a pawn. However, the Macedonian won back the pawn and started to bring together his pieces when he in explicably threw away his knight on the 38th move.

Earlier reports:
Round 10: England halt India's march
Round 9: Kunte strikes as India move to fifth position
Round 8: Sasikiran, Ganguly shine
Round 7: Thumping wins for Indian men and women
Round 6: Indian men win, women draw
Round 5: Bad day for India
Round 4: Indian teams back to winning ways
Round 3: Indian men falter against Russia
Round 2: India continue good showing at Chess Olympiad
Round 1: Indians off to a winning start at Chess Olympiad