Online Olympiad Chess 2020: Internet outage, cloudflare crash mar final; India appeals – Sports News , Firstpost

Online chess’ biggest stumbling blocks, internet disconnection and server malfunction, dampened the final of the 2020 Olympiad, which provisionally saw India losing 1.5-4.5 to Russia in the second round and subsequently the entire match on Sunday.

On board five and six both Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh’s games saw disconnection which saw India drop points, while on board 3 Koneru Humpy also faced some internet issues as she lost some time due to internet.

The Indian team formally appealed against the internet outage and FIDE’s review committee will look into the matter. More details on that front are awaited.

In the second round of #ChessOlympiad final match India vs Russia, two Indian players Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games and forfeited on time. India filed an official appeal, the issue is now being investigated.

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) August 30, 2020

The internet issues have stirred a controversy in earlier rounds as well in the quarter-final match between India and Armenia, where Armenia staged a walkout from the second round.

After the first round, both India and Russia had remained on equal footing after all the games of the first round in the final of FIDE Online Chess Olympiad ended in draws.

The first round ended in a 3-3 deadlock. Russia started as slight favourites over India in Sunday’s clash with their average rating of 12 players (2519) higher than India’s 2419. However, if the opening round of the final is anything to go by then the match seems to be an evenly-matched contest.

World No 15 and former World Champion Viswanathan Anand, India’s top-ranked player, sat out for the first round as captain Vidit Gujarati occupied the board one and was up against current World No 4 Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Vidit out-prepared Nepomniachtchi and had a clear advantage in the middle game, but the Russian managed to hold his fort to force the game into a draw.

Among the women, Koneru Humpy also squandered her pawn advantage against Kateryna Lagno and had to eventually settle for a draw.

Russia has not won a Chess Olympiad since 2002, while this India’s maiden appearance in the final of the tournament. It is the first Olympiad that is happening online.

Expect Anand and Russia’s Alexander Grischuk to come in for the second round of the match. If that round ends in a 3-3 tie as well then the match will be headed into an Armageddon.

Results:

Match 1: India 3-3 Russia

(W) Vidit Gujrathi 0.5-0.5 Ian Nepomniachtchi

(B) P Harikrishna 0.5-0.5 Vladislav Artemiev

(W) Koneru Humpy 0.5-0.5 Kateryna Lagno

(B) Harika Dronavalli 0.5-0.5 Alexandra Kosteniuk

(W) R Praggnanandhaa 0.5- 0.5 Alexey Sarana

(B) Divya Deshmukh 0.5-0.5 Polina Shuvalova