45th Chess Olympiad: Indian teams eye medals again

Budapest: The top-seeded Indian women's team, spearheaded by D Harika and R Vaishali, would be a strong podium contender thanks partly to a depleted field, while the D Gukesh-led men's outfit will also fancy its chances in the 45th Chess Olympiad starts here on Wednesday.

Koneru Humpy's non-participation in the event has not hampered the team's chances much as Vaishali has jumped significantly in rankings and is a force to reckon with in the women's circle.

Without Humpy, it will be Grandmaster D Harika on the top board, followed by Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agarwal who will serve as the mainstay. Tania Sachdev is in the side as the reserved player and is likely to have her share of games.

China has fielded a hugely depleted team. A look at the September rating list issued by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, confirms that the top four women players on the list are all from China and yet not one of them is part of the contingent here.

With Russia unable to participate for the second consecutive time in the biennial event due to sporting sanctions and Ukraine also not able to gather their best team together, all eyes will be on the Indian women's team that has a good mix of youth and experience.

Georgia is seeded a close second behind the Indian ladies. Poland is the third seed of the event ahead of China and Ukraine.

In the open section, it looks a closer fight as United States starts as the top favourite even though more than half of their players are migrants in recent years.

Fabiano Caruana will be donning the top board for the favourite team that is surely going to miss the services of Hikaru Nakamura.

However, with Wesley So, Lenier Perez Dominguez, Levon Aronian and Robson Ray this still looks the team to beat for everyone else.

The young Indian team comprising Vidit Gujrathi, R Praggnanandhaa, D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaise and P Harikrishna has all the allures to better their last outing when they had won the Bronze. This time the team is seeded second.

World number four Arjun Erigaise has been consistently rising up the ranks waiting for his big break like Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa while Harikrishna and Vidit Gujrathi provide the much needed stability as the senior players.

Though he hasn't hung his boots officially, five times World Champion Viswanathan Anand has decided to not play the world's biggest chess event for the second time running.

The Chinese have fielded a full-strength team in the open section that includes reigning World Champion Ding Liren on the top board. The Chinese start as the third seed.

The format will be 11 rounds in both open and women's section and the winning teams will get two match points for every victory scored. The game points will come in to effect if there is a tiebreaker at the end of the event.

While the final participation tally will be issued once all the teams have arrived, 191 teams in the open and 180 in the women's section are expected to compete.