NEW DELHI: The current world champion, Dommaraju Gukesh, was on Board 1 facing all the top-rated opponents during India’s gold-clinching campaign in Budapest at the 2024 Chess Olympiad. Besides the team, Gukesh won an individual gold too, boosting his overall confidence ahead of the Championship challenge against China’s Ding Liren. If that was the highest point of Gukesh’s Olympiad journey, Round 2 of the 46th edition of the Chess Olympiad brought the lowest, as the 20-year-old Chennai grandmaster fell below 2700 rating after his draw against Indonesia’s International Master (IM) Satria Duta Cahaya on Thursday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.With Arjun Erigaisi taking a rest after his loss against Thai IM Prin Laohawirapap on the opening day of the tournament and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa taking his designated Board 1 this time, Gukesh once again took Board 3 in India’s match against Indonesia.The game itself, however, was a long, patient battle rather than a disaster.Playing black against a much lower-rated opponent, Gukesh went into a Sicilian setup and spent the middlegame manoeuvring, with his knights hopping back and forth, both kings tucked away, neither side finding a real breakthrough.Around the 40-move mark, pieces started coming off the board, and by the endgame Gukesh was left with a queen and knight against Cahaya’s queen and knight, with roughly level chances.Needing a win to protect his rating and unable to find one, Gukesh eventually used his queen to give a string of checks around Cahaya’s king, a “perpetual check”, which forced the draw by repetition.It was a safe result, but not the kind expected from a reigning world champion against a 2412-rated opponent.Gukesh had started this Olympiad at 2703 and now sits at 2699.5, dropping below the 2700 mark for the first time since he first crossed it back in 2022.There is a general feeling that the Board 3 assignment could cut both ways for him. He won’t run into the strongest opposition every round, but any slip against a lower-rated player carries outsized risk to his rating, exactly as it did on Thursday.With three of India’s four boards ending in draws, it was Nihal Sarin who kept the team’s campaign on track, beating Indonesia’s Arif Abdul Hafiz. Even though for a large stretch of the game, that outcome looked far from certain.
D Gukesh draws his Round 2 game (Photo by Rafal Oleksiewicz for FIDE)
How Nihal Sarin saved India’s day
Playing white and the Sicilian Defence, Nihal castled queenside and launched a kingside attack with g4 and g5. However, Hafiz countered well, winning pawns and creating serious threats around Nihal’s king. After 22…Qxc2+, Black appeared to have taken control, while Nihal was also running dangerously low on time.The turning point came with 28.Rxc6+!, a bold rook sacrifice. Instead of trying to recover his material, Nihal chose to expose the black king. After 28…Kxc6, he continued with Qxe4+ and Qxb4, bringing his queen into the attack. A series of checks then forced the black king around the board, while Hafiz’s clock continued to fall.By 37.Nc5+, Black had no way out and resigned.It was a scrappy, double-edged fight rather than a clean demolition, but exactly the kind of gritty win India needed to avoid an upset.Elsewhere in the Indonesia match, Praggnanandhaa, back on Board 1 after Wednesday’s rest day, drew with Susanto Megaranto, while Vidit Santosh Gujrathi also settled for a draw on Board 4 against Nayaka Budhidharma.With Nihal’s win as the difference-maker, India closed out the match 2.5-1.5 to stay unbeaten through two rounds.
Indian women’s team registers comfortable win, opponents for Round 3 revealed
With Koneru Humpy taking a rest day, the 2025 Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh made her first appearance in this edition of Women’s Olympiad.Nevertheless, the women’s team had a far more comfortable outing, brushing aside Finland 3.5-0.5. Vaishali Rameshbabu drew her game, but Divya, Vantika Agrawal and Savitha Shri all won to seal a dominant scoreline.India will look to keep the winning streak going on Friday, when the men’s team takes on Italy, and the women face Greece.