China Leads Men, Ties Indian Women in Asian Games

Sunday, 21 November 2010 12:26

China grabbed solo lead in the men's division and shared the lead with India in the women's division after four rounds of the 16th Asian Games Chess Team Championship at the Guangzhou Chess Institute in Guangzhou, China. Visit chess-results.com for results and standings. China edged India men 2.5-1.5 on a win on board four by Ni Hua over G N Gopal as all three other boards were drawn. China with 8 match points is a shoo-in for one of the four semmifinal slots. India held on to second slot with 6 match points together with the Philippines which beat Kazakhstan 2.5-1.5 on a win on third board by GM John Paul Gomez over GM Rinat Jumabayev as the other three boards ended in draws. Three teams, namely Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Iran are tied with 5 match points each. Vietnam drew with Uzbekistan with each team winning two games. In the other matches of the day, Mongolia drew with Iran 2-2, Kyrgyzstan beat Maldives 3-1, Qatar defeated Yemen 3.5-.5, Bangladesh blanked Korea 4-0, and Iraq had a walk over from Lebanon which withdrew from the competion as they did not have the minimum of three fit players. Asian Chess Federation Secretary General Hisham Al Taher watching the match between Vietnam and India. In the women's division, Bangladesh streched China a bit but ultimately lost 2.5-1.5. Untitled Sultana Sharmin Shirin of Bangladesh beat GM Zhao Xue on the second board and WGM Ju Wenjum was held to a draw by WFM Shamima Akter Liza on the top board. WGM Huang Qian and IM Wang Yua beat their less fancied rivals Khan Nazrana and Begum Masuda. IM Tania Sachdev of India did the Houdini's act and ended up victorious against WIM Pham Le Thao Nguyen and thus ensured two match points for her country, as the other three games ended in draws. In the other games Uzbekistan beat Qatar 4-0, Iran beat Turkmenistan 2.5-1.5, Syria beat Korea 2.5-1.5 and Mongolia beat Jordan 3-1. China got a surprise from an inspired Bangladesh women's team. The top four from the 7-rd Swiss System Preliminaries will qualify into the semifinals. Each team's place in order of classifiication shall be decided by the number of Match points it has scored. In the Semifinals, qualifiers will be paired by their Preliminaries ranking. Match A will be between 1 and 4 and Match B will be between 2 and 3. The two winners shall play the finals on 26th Nov. for gold and silver while the other two teams play for bronze. The Games are shown live on www.asia-chess.com Media Team Volunteers learn chess, from left, Samara (Caissa) Chou, Tinting Chen and Michelle Chui. Chess is joined by Weiqi and Xiangzi. There are 400 players and delegation members and assisting are 400 staff and volunteers in line with the aim of the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC) to involve the citizenry.