Indian teams off to winning start

The team compostion was made by Russian coach Valeri Salov and DV prasad and senior GM Dibyendu Barua. On the top board of the men’s team GM abjijit Kunte was impressive. With black pieces Kunte adopted Nimzo Indian Defence and tied down his opponent G Borge at e3 pawn.

Borg tried premature to push e4 and allowed kunte To take material advantage with two extra pawn and a piece later to score a point after 40 moves.

Dibyendu Barua white started e4 and comfortably break the French Defence of Canally of Malta. In the middlegame Barua replaced his rook in king side and got a brilliant attack to force his opponent to resign at move 38.

GM norm holder DV prasad played a perfect positional game in Paulson Variation of Sicilian Defence. Prasad increased pressure in king side to take a winning advantage. Getting hopeless position his opponent resigned at 39 move.

Surya Sekhar Ganguly played his first game in Olympiad with a debut score. Ganguly played Sicilian Dragon and repeated all 22 moves from book theory. After an exchange Ganguly got rook, bishop and four pawns against rook, knight and four pawan. The active bishop of Ganguly was enough against hostile knight to score a point for his team.

The women’s team also sparkled in the opening round. Indian WGM S Vijayalakshmi adopted Paulsen Dragon mix system against Era Conolly of Ireland. This confused the Irish girl and she was not able to survive after 40 moves.

On the second board, Meenaskhi defeated Slochru in Queen Endings and Saheli Barua won against Quinn in French game after 36 moves.