Asian Games: Indian chess players start on a confident note

India's campaign in the Asian Games chess, in which they are expected to secure some medals, commenced on a heartening note with K Sasikiran, Suraya Sekhar Ganguly, D Harika and Tanya Sachdev winning their respective opening games of the league.

Second seed Sasikiran, with an ELO rating of 2688, defeated Malaysian rival Mok Tze-Meng, while fourth seed Ganguly (2644) got the better of Iraqi rival Al-Saffar Araz Basim Mohammed in the men's competition.

Top seed Le Quang Liem of Vietnam, with a rating of 2689, also began his bid with a victory over UAE's Hassan Abdullah.

Harika and Tanya got past Sultana Shamin Shirin of Bangladesh and Chnar Mohammed Qane of Iraq, respectively.

Top seed Harika has a much superior rating of 2525 than most of the other competitors in the women's event.

Tania said things would get tougher after a relatively easy first round match.

"It was comparatively easy, but it will get tougher," she said.

Tanya also added that with very little time to know the opponents, it would be a question of taking it one game at a time.

"There was really no time to prepare. The pairings were not announced until about five minutes before (the match). Now, it is just a question of playing game after game, but it's not a problem," she said.