World Teams R01: Viji's unbelievable miss

Men lost to Poland: 1.5- 2.5, Women draw Georgia: 2:2 

The headlines of this article could have very well read Vidit's amazing win over Radoslaw Wojtaszek. However, as it turns out Vijayalakshmi's loss was much more pivotal. And it happened in an endgame where she was a complete piece up. Usually it's the other way around - Viji is losing the game and tricks her opponent. It's a very rare occurrence that she would mess up in a completely winning position. Let's have a look at what happened in her game:

Nino Batsiashvili - S. Vijayalakshmi, board four

Nino went wrong at this point in the game when she took on c6 with her knight. Viji simply recaptured and after Bxc6 White thought that he was going to win back some material. But, what had she missed?

Of course, Qa6! With this move, everything is saved and with a few more accurate move, White emerges with an extra piece. It could be possible that Batsiashvili saw a bit further, that after Qxa6 Rxa6 Bb7 Ra7 Rc8 she was winning back a piece, but Viji's Kf8 threw cold water on her ambitions, as after Rxd8 Ke7 Rb8 Nd7, wins back the piece. (If you could follow this entire line blindfold in your mind, then great. If you couldn't, try it out again. It's one of the best ways to get better at chess!)

Just to show you how much Viji was in control. She had her king centralized and also the knight. It was just a winning position!

The critical moment of the game. Viji played the inexplicable Na6. Just Nc6 and pushing the b-pawn down the board would have finished off the game. After Na6 the game became complicated and although Black still got chances to win the game, she went on to actually lose the battle. Here's the entire game with analysis:

Eesha Karavade played solidly on the second board against Lela Javakhishvili and drew her game.

Open section:

If this was an individual tournament we would all have been rejoicing Vidit's fine win over Radoslaw Wojtaszek. As it turns out Adhiban and Karthikeyan both lost their games to Duda and Kacper respectively, and India slumped to a 2.5:1.5 defeat against Poland.

The Indian team made a bold decision of resting the Capablanca memorial winner and the man in form Sasikiran Krishnan. Well, one can only wonder what would have happened if Sasi had played the round, especially because Vidit had done his job on board one. Although India lost, a good point for the team is Negi's draw with the black pieces against Bartel. Even playing after such a long time, he was able to show good level of chess.

Vidit Gujrathi won his game without much difficulty against Polish number one Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2730). He attributed his victory to the sixth move of the game 6.Ne5!?

Speaking to Vidit after the game, the 22-year-old said to ChessBase India, "Ne5 was actually found together by Anish (Giri) and me. It's a funny move, with a very original idea. Anish played it against Wesley in chess.com blitz match, but apparently Wojtaszek didn't know about it! His reaction was very passive and I built a strong position."

We had an interesting question on Facebook by Aditya Talekar, who asked - Isn't it bad to move the same piece twice in the opening? A valid point, Aditya. However the move Ne5 has some upsides. First of all the knight is on a good central square, putting pressure on the various key points in the black position. More importantly this is a new idea that Vidit analyzed at home and Wojtaszek didn't. The surprise element makes it worth trying out for a game or two. As Nigel Short famously said in the Anand-Carlsen match of 2014 - "This is a condom variation!" You cannot try it more than once! Well, is it true for this line as well? Only time will tell.

Let's go over the game:

Adhiban has to attribute this loss to his habit of always wanting to do something in a position.

In a relatively even position, he went ahead and opened the position with ...g5. If you look closely, this move does absolutely nothing positive to the black player's game. He is simply left with the h5 weakness which Duda used to activate his forces. The Polish GM unleashed some beautiful tactics revolving around the e4 square. Have a look at it in the game analysis below:

Karthikeyan was doing pretty well in the game, but when things got complicated his opponent Piorun Kacper clearly showed superior tactical mastery.

Team results Open section:

The biggest upset was Turkey holding Ukraine to a 2-2 draw.

For board wise break down, click here

Team results Women section:

The most important match up was Russia against China. The Russian women won 3:1 and this has surely boosted their campaign for a gold medal.

For board wise break down, click here

Live Games along with live commentary from Evgeny Miroschnichenko and Anna Rudolf can be followed on the ChessBase India website. You can also download games of all the rounds, lightly annotated by the tactical analysis feature.

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