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Asian Teams Sweep Pairs Rapid at WMSG! |
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Saturday, 11 October 2008 09:56 |
After a hiccup to Pairs Blitz Winners Ecuador in the fourth round, hosts China finally hit form and led a sweep of Asian teams into the Semi-Finals of the Pairs Rapid at the 1st World Mind Sports Games.
China, again fielding GM Ni Hua and Hou Yifan, were very convincing winners of the preminaries with 15 match points. Hou is finally playing somewhere at her normal level and Ni found new determination in the last few rounds to notch several important wins.
 
Dao & Le of Vietnam
Vietnam and Iran were both also worthy qualifiers on 13 and 12 match points respectively. GM Dao Tien Hai showed all his old form when he was his country's No. 1 talent and he was well supported by WIM Le Lieu Thien Kim. Iran again fielded the reliable pair of GM Ehsan Gaem Maghami and WIM Atousa Pourkashiyan.
The finally qualifer was perhaps the biggest surprise - Indonesia who scored 11 match points - edging 5 other teams (India, Poland, Germany, Greece and Singapore) on tiebreak. But the combination of the experienced veteran GM Utut Adianto who now only plays occasionally and their young rising star WIM Irine Sukhandar worked well for them!
As always, full coverage of the 1st World Mind Sports Games is at www.2008wmsg.org/en and all games are broadcast live and available for viewing and download daily at www.2008wmsg.fide.com.
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