The Indians had a mixed outing in the eighth round of the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin with the men scoring a 2.5-1.5 victory over Bulgaria and the women suffering defeat at the hands of Armenia.
While Viswanathan Anand played out his fifth draw on the trot - settling for peace with former world junior champion Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria, National Champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly suffered went down against Alexander Delchev.
It was only thanks to a late onslaught by Krishnan Sasikiran and Sandipan Chanda against Ivan Cheparinov and Vasily Spassov respectively that the Indian men were able to get past unscathed.
Indian mainstay Koneru Humpy fumbled against Lilit Mkrtchian and suffered her first defeat in the event as the Indian women lost to Armenia by a 1-2 margin.
D Harika also went down while the lone saving grace was Swati Ghate who won an engrossing battle on the third board to thwart a whitewash.
At the top of the tables, the Armenian men yet again proved that they are the frontrunners this time with a comprehensive 3-1 victory over Cuba.
The Russian men could only manage a 2-2 draw with Czech Republic which meant that Armenia took a two point lead over their nearest rivals.
In the women's section, Russia drew with Czech Republic raising Ukraine's title hopes. The result narrowed Czechs' lead to half a point. The Ukrainians cruised to an easy 2-1 victory over Hungary.
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