India A men assured of chess gold

Kolkata, Dec 27 : The India A men's team cruised past Singapore to be assured of the gold medal after the sixth and penultimate round of the Tata Steel Asian Team Chess Championship here Sunday.

India A beat Singapore 3.5-0.5 and boosted their tally to 12 points at the Town Hall.

On the top board, GM P. Harikrishna beat the lone Singapore GM Wu Shaobin convincingly while GM Parimarjan Negi had little difficulty against low-rated Lo Kin Mun Dominic.

GM Deepan Chakkravarthy was held to a draw by Tan Weiliang who has an Elo of only 2168. Team skipper K. Sasikiran, surprisingly faced stiff resistance from FM Chua Zheng Yuan Terry but finally prevailed after a prolonged struggle.

Vietnam outplayed Indonesia 4-0 to take their match score to 9 points, while Iran crushed Sri Lanka 4-0 to take their match score to 9 points as well.

A point behind them are India B on 8 points. They beat tail-enders Yemen 3-1, but surprisingly conceded two draws.

In the women's section, Vietnam are well placed to pick up the gold as they have 11 match points and need only a draw against minnows Nepal in the last round to confirm their gold medal.

India A women's team took their tally to 9 by beating Bangladesh 4-0 but got the dreaded bye in the last round and will get only 1 point. India B women outwitted Sri Lanka to also inflate their points kitty to 9. They meet Iran in the final round and a win should get them the silver ahead of India A.

Results:

Men's Section: India A (12) bt Singapore (4); Vietnam (9) bt Indonesia (6); Iran (9) bt Sri Lanka (3); India B (8) bt Yemen (2); Nepal (1) lost to Bangladesh (6)

Women's Section: Vietnam (11) bt Indonesia (4); Bangladesh (4) lost to India A (9); India B (9) bt Sri Lanka (3); Iran (7) bt Nepal (1)