Updated: August 29, 2020 5:59:41 pm
India beat Poland in the semi-final on Saturday. (FIDE)
Koneru Humpy stood his ground in an Armageddon game to clinch a 2-1 victory for India in the Chess Olympiad semi-final against Poland on Saturday. India, whose previous best result at the Olympiad was a bronze medal in 2014, is now assured of its first gold or silver medal. They will face the semi-final winners Russia vs the United States in Sunday’s final.
Rapid Women’s World Champion Koneru Humpy wins decisive Armageddon game with Black against Monika Socko and Team India reaches FIDE Online final #ChesOlympiad. They will play a winning match of Russia – USA starting at 16:00 UTC. pic.twitter.com/n29sDaOnnZ
– International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) August 29, 2020
The Indian team rallied for a 2-1 victory on Saturday. They lost the first round 2-4. They then bounced back in the second with a landslide 4.5-1.5 win. Humpy did the rest in the decisive tiebreaker of the match.
Indian superstar Humpy Koneru wins for INDIA 🇮🇳
India advances to FINALS !!! # Chess Olympiad #IndiaOP pic.twitter.com/NDaQfAqjnE
– Chess.com – India (@chesscom_in) August 29, 2020
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand prevailed with a much-needed win over Jan-Krzystof Duda in 78 moves in the second round after losing to his opponent in the first round.
Captain Vidit Gujrathi led the way with a victory over Gzegorz Gajeswki, while Humpy and D Harika also achieved victories. The young prodigy R Praggnanandhaa, who replaced Nihal Sarin, was defeated by Igor Janik while Vantika Agrawal drew with Alicja Silwicka.
READ | India stuns China to qualify for Chess Olympiad quarterfinals
In the first round, Anand was tamed by Duda, while Gujrathi lost to Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Divya Deshmukh was defeated by Alicja Silwicka.
Humpy and Harika drew against Socko and Karina Cyfika respectively, while Sarin achieved India’s only victory, beating Igor Janik, in the first round.
The scorecard of the semifinal:
India is in the final !! After losing the first game to Poland 4-2, we came back strong in the next with a score of 4.5-1.5. Humpy showed incredible nerves by taking over the armaggedon in a spectacular way!
– Vidit Gujrathi (@viditchess) August 29, 2020
The Indian team had previously defeated Armenia in the quarterfinals on Friday.
This is the first time that the Olympiad has been played in an online format and with a final stage that is played by elimination rounds.
(With PTI inputs)
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