Vijayalakshmi wins silver
at Chess Olympiad

Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman won the silver medal for her performance on the top board in the 35th Chess Oylmpiad, which concluded at the Bled Sports Hall in Slovenia on Sunday.

A star performer for the Indian team, she amassed 9.5 points from 13 games. She edged out former women's World champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who also finished with a 73 per cent success rate, by achieving the success rate from a lesser number of games.

Vijayalakshmi had won the silver medal at the last Olympiad in 2000, in Istanbul.

Earlier in the day, the Indian men and women teams lost to Iceland and Israel and finished with 31 and 23.5 points respectively.

At the last Olympiad they had scored 33 and 24 points respectively and finsihed 29th and 19th.

China won the gold in the women's section for the third time in the row after registering an emphatic victory over Bulgaria. Poland took the bronze.

Russia, as expected, won the gold in the men's section. The Russians played an easy 2-2 draw against Yugoslavia to win the title for the sixth consecutive time.

Hungary finished second, while Armenia were third.

In another Ruy Lopez game between India's latest Grandmaster Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Helgi Gretarsson, the latter emerged winner in 43 moves. Ganguly, who had the White defence, faced the rare Stenitz defence and sacrificed a pawn in the opening in order to take advatage of Black's under developed Kingside. However, Black won another pawn on the a file and soon promoted to a Queen. Ganguly was then forced to give up an exchange for the new Queen and when Black bought out his kingside pieces, Ganguly, who had no compensation for lost material, resigned.

It was tragic end to British champion R B Ramesh's quest for his third and final GM norm. Playing with white pieces against Throstur Thorhallsson, Ramesh came up against the Rubinstein variation of the French defence. He obtained a comforatble position out of the opening with pieces well centralised. However, he could not get an attack going in view of Black active Queen. Ramesh then exchanged Queens in order to mobilise his Queenside pawn majority. In the resulting double Rook and Bishop ending he lost an exchange. From then on it was easy for Black, who bought his King in aid of his Rooks to threaten Checkmate when Ramesh resigned on the 78th move.

The 18th seeded Indian women's team went 1-2 down to 23rd seeded Israel in three hard-fought games. WGM Vijayalakshmi and WIM Meenakshi drew their games, while WIM Aarthie Ramaswamy lost in the bottom board.

Vijayalakshmi faced WGM Klinova Masha with white pieces in the top board. The queen pawn game entered a complex middle game that offered some chances to the Indian. Masha who had double bishops fought well and offered good resistence. Holding the seventh rank consistently Vijayalakshmi looked set for a win, but the exchange of pieces in regular intervals reduced her options and peace was signed on the 58th move.

WIM Meenakshi took on WGM Borsuk Angela in the seond board and chose the Slav defence for her final onslaught. Queens were exchanged just outside the opening and some safe play on both the sides saw the game producing a second draw for the Indian camp. And the final position of a minor piece and three pawns on same side justified the result.

WIM Aarthie Ramaswamy, who was India's hero against Germany, turned out to be the only loser today. She went down to WFM Botvinnik Irina in a marathon Sicilian game lasting 69 moves.

Top board perforamance:
Gold: Trang Thanh (Vietnam).
Silver: Vijalakshmi Subbaraman (India)
Bronze: Maya Chiburdanidze (Georgia)

Final placings: Men
1. RUS 38.5 pts.
2. HUN 37.5 pts.
3. ARM 35 pts.
4. GEO 34 pts.
5. CHN 33.5 pts.
6. NED 33.5 pts.
7. ENG 33.5 pts.
8. SVK 33 pts.
9. ISR 33 pts.
10. YUG 33 pts.
11. MAC 33 pts.
12. SWI 33 pts.
29. India 31 pts

Women
1. CHN 29.5 pts.
2. RUS 29 pts.
3. POL 28 pts.
4. GEO 27.5 pts.
5. HUN 25.5 pts.
6. UKR 25.5 pts.
7. YUG 25.5 pts.
8. AZE 25.5 pts.
9. USA 25 pts.
10. CZE 25 pts.
19. India 23.5 points.

Earlier reports:
Round 13: Indian teams lose at Chess Olympiad
Round 12: Surya Shekhar Ganguly becomes Grandmaster
Round 11: India's medal hopes diminish
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