Online Chess Olympiad: India lose to USA in semis; settled for Bronze

India’s defence of their FIDE Online Chess Olympiad title came to an end at the semi final stage when the team lost to the USA in a tie-break on Tuesday.

The semi final started off in favour of team India by winning the first match 5 – 1 margin with Anand, Harikrishna, Harika and Vaishali winning their games. Koneru Humpy drew with Irina Krush as did Nihal Sarin against Liang.

But USA came back strongly in the next match as Anand lost to Jeffery Xiong on the top board, while Vidit lost to Ray Robson and R Praggnanandhaa who replaced Nihal for the second match lost against Liang. Vaishali and Humpy drew their games while Harika marked another won game. India lost the duel 2 – 4 forced a tie breaker to decide the semi final fate.

However, unlike on Quarter Final when India won the tie-break easily against Ukraine, things did not go well for India against the US as they were outplayed in blitz game 4.5 – 1.5 to seal a great comeback victory for the USA to book the final berth while India and China settled for Bronze.

In the final, the USA will meet the co-winners of the last edition Russia on Wednesday.

All India Chess Federation extend our heartfelt thanks to FIDE organising such an event meticulously, our players, coaches and support staff for showing great efforts during the entire Olympiad and Microsense Networks Pvt Ltd for the invaluable support extended to AICF. We also extend our gratitude to the Media and Indian chess fans for their whole hearted support to the team.

We wish the very best to team USA and Russia for the final.