By IANS
Macau : India, who made a clean sweep of all three gold medals in rapid chess, made a winning start in the classical format also at the second Asian Indoor Games.
The Indians, who are fielding the same team in both forms of competition, beat Jordan 3.5-0.5, conceding just a draw against three wins in the clash.
K. Sasikiran, playing on the top board with black pieces beat Ahmad Samhouri, while Surya Sekhar Ganguly, despite white pieces, could not find a win against a lowly rated Mohammed Al Rahhamneh.
The two women, Koneru Humpy and Dronvalli Harika scored facile wins. Humpy beat Ghayda Attar with white pieces while Harika played with black during her win over Tania Mahmoud.
In other matches, China beat Iraq, Vietnam blanked Singapore and Kazakhstan outclassed Pakistan, Qatar crushed Brunei and Indonesia defeated hosts Macau and Philippines downed Nepal. All were 4-0 wins.
After Sunday’s second round, the third and fourth rounds will be played Monday and the last two Tuesday when the medals will be decided. Once again, as in rapid format, the top four players will qualify for the semi-finals.
Humpy will be mindful of not making any lapses, as the surprise loss in the first round of team championships cost her a place in the individual semi-finals and denied her a medal.