Bangladeshi's give the top seeded Indians a scare
The playing hall is huge, bright and spacious. The youngsters are all nicely dressed up in the jersey's of their team. Each match has a personal arbiter. Coaches are pacing around nervous about their team's games. This is the scene at the World Youth Olympiad 2017 that is taking place at the Karnavati Club in Gujarat from the 11th to the 18th of December 2017! It is one of the most exciting events of the year and ChessBase India will be bringing you round by round updates. For now we have the first round report, where all the favourites won their games. Videos, game analysis and pictures by Amruta Mokal!
Sometimes in the first rounds what you see on paper is much different from what actually happened in the round. This is because the underdogs often make silly errors towards the end and the result falls in place for the stronger team. However, if the weaker team could have held on for a bit longer, the result would have been much different. This is exactly what happened in the match between Bangladesh and India Green in the first round of the World Youth Olympiad 2017.
With 1-0 up everything seemed on track for an Indian victory. But Aryan Chopra as Black was under pressure from Mohammad Fahad Rahman. On board two Praggnanandhaa was a pawn up, but it looked as if his opponent had excellent compensation. And Vaishali had sacrificed a piece. Now with the hindsight of having looked at the engine, it seems as if Vaishali played a nearly flawless game. But even she wasn't 100% sure whether her sacrifice was correct.
Pragg went for the interesting sacrifice Nxf7. His opponent who was rated 2192, played decently but in the below position he had to take on e5.
So the scoreline reads 3.5-0.5 in favour of India, but ask Prasenjit Dutta (coach of the Indian Green team) and he will tell you how tensed he was at one point during the match!
Results of Round 1
| No. | SNo | Team | Pts. | MP | Res. | : | Res. | MP | Pts. | Team | SNo | ||
| 1 | 16 | Bangladesh | 0 | 0 | ½ | : | 3½ | 0 | 0 | India Green | 1 | ||
| 2 | 2 | Iran | 0 | 0 | 3½ | : | ½ | 0 | 0 | Indonesia | 17 | ||
| 3 | 18 | Iraq | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Russia | 3 | ||
| 4 | 4 | Armenia | 0 | 0 | 4 | : | 0 | 0 | 0 | Sri Lanka | 19 | ||
| 5 | 20 | South Africa A | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Uzbekistan | 5 | ||
| 6 | 6 | India Red | 0 | 0 | 3½ | : | ½ | 0 | 0 | Australia | 21 | ||
| 7 | 22 | Thailand | 0 | 0 | ½ | : | 3½ | 0 | 0 | India Blue | 7 | ||
| 8 | 8 | Turkey | 0 | 0 | 3 | : | 1 | 0 | 0 | Nepal A | 23 | ||
| 9 | 24 | South Africa B | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Israel | 9 | ||
| 10 | 10 | Belarus | 0 | 0 | 4 | : | 0 | 0 | 0 | Nepal B | 25 | ||
| 11 | 26 | Kenya B | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Kazakhstan | 11 | ||
| 12 | 12 | Argentina | 0 | 0 | 4 | : | 0 | 0 | 0 | Kyrgystan | 27 | ||
| 13 | 28 | Mozambique | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Mongolia | 13 | ||
| 14 | 14 | Malaysia | 0 | 0 | 4 | : | 0 | 0 | 0 | Kenya A | 29 | ||
| 15 | 30 | Uganda | 0 | 0 | 0 | : | 4 | 0 | 0 | Canada | 15 |
The biggest upset of the day was Nepal's Milan Lama (1833) getting the better of Ekin Baris Ozenir (2377). The Nepal player played a fine game on board one to beat his Turkish opponent.
Pictorial impressions by Amruta Mokal:
Replay all the games of Round 1
