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World No. 2 Viswanathan Anand led from the front as the second seed Indian men's team stamped an emphatic 4-0 victory over Mongolia in the third round of the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin.
Despite showing signs of obvious fatigue after the just-concluded Mtel Masters in Sofia, from where he arrived the previous night, Anand made it clear that he would play to put the Indians back in medal contention, and planned a fantastic comeback for his team after its shocking first round defeat at the hands of Morocco.
Russia, China and Uzbekistan emerged as joint leaders on 10.5 points each while Greece Ukraine and Poland are joint-fourth now with 10 points apiece.
There are six teams in the next score group of 9.5 points and the Indian men, with their back-to-back 4-0 triumphs after the first round disaster are now in joint 13th spot with 9 points in their bag while 10 rounds still remain in the biggest chess event of the world.
Anand started against Batchuluun Cegmed with 500 points rating advantage and white pieces that gave only a little hope to his opponent.
However, the Mongolian fought on bitterly in the French defense game in which Anand employed his pet Winawer variation.
The Indian ace won a piece in the middle game with some fine tactical squeeze and carved out a checkmating web to leave Cegmed hopeless. The game lasted just 34 moves.
On the second board, Gundavaa Bayarsaihan also proved no match for Krishanan Sasikiran despite playing white as the Indian improved his position consistently in the middle game to come out winner.
Former World junior champion P Harikrishna also won with awesome ease against Bayarmandah
Balgan while on the fourth board three-time National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly made the technicalities of an endgame look easy against Grandmaster Bazar Hatanbaatar, the best player of Mongolia.
From now on the Indian team is expected to play tougher teams. In the next round they are pitted against an evenly balanced Hungarian side that also boasts of Grandmasters on all four boards.
Russia dropped as many as 1.5 points against Germany. The interest for this round was huge as Braingames match winner and Classical champion Vladimir Kramnik took board one for Russian team for the first time here and made his presence count with a sparkling victory over Arkadij Naiditsch, the top German player.
Russian Alexander Morozevich drew with veteran Artur Jussopow on the second board while on the third Evgeny Bareev accounted for Christopher Lutz. The shocker for Russia came on board four when National champion Sergei Rublevsky went down to Alexander Graf.
Important results round 3: Russia (10.5) beat Germany (9.5) 2.5-1.5; Poland (9) lost to Greece (10) 1.5-2.5; Ukraine (10) beat Serbia & Montenegro (8.5) 3-1; Turkey (8) lost to Netherlands (10) 1-3; Australia ( 7.5) lost to Uzbekistan (10.5) 3.5-0.5; Iceland (9.5) beat Vietnam (8.5) 2.5-1.5; Slovakia (7.5) lost to China (10.5) 0.5-3.5; Spain (9.5) beat Argentina (7.5) 3-1; Armenia (9.5) beat Denmark (7.5) 3-1; Georgia (9) beat Colombia (8) 2.5-1.5; Israel (8) drew with Peru (8.5) 2-2; Lithuania (6.5) lost to Bulgaria (9.5) 0.5-3.5; England (8) drew with Indonesia (8); Norway (9.5) beat Luxembourg ( 6.5) 3.5-0.5; Philippines (7.5) lost to USA (8.5) 1.5-2.5; Portugal (7) lost to Hungary (9) 1-3; Singapore (6.5) lost to Brazil (9.5) 0.5-3.5; France (8) beat Iran (7) 2.5-1.5; India (9) beat Mongolia (5.5) 4-0.
Indian board results round 3: Anand Viswanathan beat Batchuluun Cegmed; Gundavaa Bayarsaihan lost to Krishnan Sasikiran; P Harikrishna beat Bayarmandah Balgan; Bazar Hatanbaatar lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly.