‘We missed some winning chances’

Though the men could not match their previous best of a bronze medal in 2014, they were always in the running for a medal and the reason for their slip in the home stretch could be because some players missed winning chances. Ranked fifth in the world based on the average rating of its top 10 players, the Indian team played well, drawing with top seeds Russia and Norway and beating Azerbaijan, the Netherlands and England, among others.

“When you play a tournament like chess Olympiad, it is quite common to make mistakes. I think if you check the games, several players missed wins or went wrong after getting into promising positions,” World No.15 GM Pentala Harikrishna said.

Harikrishna played a critical and confidence-building role at the Olympiad, winning against World Chess title challenger and World No.9 GM Sergey Karjakin of Russia (ELO rating 2769) and GM Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and drawing against World No.1 Magnus Carlsen (2857) of Norway, World No.12 GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands and World No.3 Fabiano Caruana (2808) of the US. 

“Looking back at the Olympiad, India played excellent chess. We started as the ninth seed and, after six rounds, were leading the tournament with victories against Cuba, Azerbaijan and the Netherlands,” he said. Experts had also predicted India winning a medal at the tournament -- even a different colour than the bronze it won at the 2014 Olympiad. “As players, we have to play all 11 rounds well. So there is no point in thinking about medals during the tournament,” Harikrishna said. 

While Harikrishna is in a different league with a rating of 2752, the other Indians also seem to be on course to soon touch 2700 points. Vidit Santosh Gujrathi has a rating of 2669, B. Adhiban is at 2671 and S.P. Sethuraman is at 2649.