India win historic Chess Olympiad bronze

[FischerTal]

PUNE: Indian chess men created history in Tromso (Norway) on Thursday, winning their first-ever team bronze in the Chess Olympiad. The Indians finished second in a 'four-way tie' behind Hungary, who won silver, and ahead of Russia and Azerbaijan. It was Asia's night as China won the continent's first-ever gold. India thumped Uzbekistan 3.5-0.5 in their last outing to finish with 17 match points. According to the tie-break rule, the total game-points of all four tied teams from their 11 different rival teams in the entire tournament had to be added. Hungary tallied 0.5 point ahead of India (371.5) - who had earned 30.5 game points against Uzbekistan. Russia (352) and Azerbaijan (345) were way behind. For India the day became more eventful with K Sasikiran becoming the first Indian to play 100 Olympiad games. But even he and captain RB Ramesh were unaware of the feat. Second seeds India had finished 30th in 2006 with Viswanathan Anand leading the pack. Now, without top-two players Anand and P Harikrishna and seeded 19th, India finished third. Till 2006, the event was played over 13 rounds. Now, it has been reduced to 11 rounds. China (19) won the gold by a two-point margin, beating Poland in the last round. Among the women, India drew with Romania to tally 15 points and finish 10th. Russia (19 points) clinched the gold by beating Bulgaria. Indian men lost only two of the 44 games and won 19. Playing Parimarjan Negi (2645) on the top board and Sasi (2669) on the third board seemed to have worked for India. But India were also lucky not to face strong teams like China, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Russia and Bulgaria in this Olympiad. "We didn't avoid any opponent. We played as per the pairings," said captain Ramesh. "When we came to the top, the tournament was over." India didn't lose any match. A draw against 35th seeds Argentina in the ninth round could have hurt them big vis-a-vis medal finish, but it gave them easier opponents in the last two rounds. Ramesh said: "We wanted Sasi and Adhiban to score heavily and Negi and Sethuraman to play solid. But 1, 2, 3 scored heavily and the fourth board was solid!" He said India scored heavily against weak teams and drew higher seeded teams. "A win with big margin over Uzbeks tilted the tie-break in our favour," Ramesh said. In the women's section, Ukraine and China appeared to have agreed for easy draws among themselves on all four boards and tallied 18 points each. It assured them of medals with China taking silver due to a better tie-break score. A win may not have been good enough to overtake Russia and claim gold for either of them, whereas a defeat could have put them out of the medal bracket.

Source: https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dI7T7iPrxu1GZHM3Cx97oNdX219cM&q=captain+rb+ramesh&lr=English&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PMb5U4DLG83moATvt4LIDg&ved=0CCAQqgIwAA hats off to captain rb ramesh, who unlike our own captain cool actually led his team to a victory when no one was expecting them to finish even in top 10. :isalute: