Zaozhuang (China), May 17:
The Indian men scored a thumping 4-0 victory over Yemen but their women counterparts succumbed to a 1-3 loss against China-2 in the first round of Asian Chess Championship here today.
Captain Krishnan Sasikiran led from the front and scored an easy victory as black against Hatem Ebrahim Ahmed while on the third, national champion Abhijeet Gupta proved too good against Omar Abdulla who also played white.
P Harikrishna got a walkover on the second board and G N Gopal registered an easy victory on the day when the think-tank rested Asian champion Parimarjan Negi.
With full points in the bag, the Indian men will take on Singapore in the second round.
Also scoring a victory with full point was China-1, Vietnam, Singapore and Iran but Mongolia caused a mild flutter holding China-2 to a 2-2 draw. This was also the lone drawn encounter of the day. In the other match, Kazakhstan scored a 3-1 victory over Indonesia.
The 14-teams event will be played over a ‘Swiss’ format with nine rounds in all and Sasikiran provided the perfect start out of a Grunfeld defense game playing black. (PTI)
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