SL Narayanan gets bronze in world team chess, India comes in fourth
At the FIDE World Team Chess Championship, the two-round bronze medal play-off resulted in a draw, and India fell to Spain 1-3 in the blitz tie-break. The teams played to 2-2 ties in both rounds but Spain won the blitz tie-break as Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin lost their matches.
S L Narayanan and Alexei Shirov drew, while in the other games, Abhijeet Gupta defeated Miguel Santos Ruiz. Early on Saturday, Spain won 3-1 as a result of this. Playing with black, Gujrathi drew Santos Latasa in the opening round while Sarin reached a truce with Guijarro in the final game of the match. Both the other two matches—Narayanan vs. Daniil Yuffa and Gupta vs. Santos Ruiz—were draws.
Games on all four boards involving the same players finished in draws in the second round, continuing the trend. Spain prevailed 4-2 in the tie-break to earn its first team competition medal ever.
Despite the defeat, India had cause for celebration on the final day of the international competition as GM SL Narayanan won the individual bronze for his efforts. Narayanan was working the third board, where he averaged a rating of 2716, which is significantly better than his current FIDE rating in quick chess of 2588. Narayanan finished the competition with 5 wins, 4 draws, and 1 defeat out of the 10 quick games he played.
In the quarterfinals against France, he also won a blitz game in the tiebreak, and in the bronze-medal match, he drew the blitz tiebreak with Spain.
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