China and India share the lead in the men's division while Vietnam grabbed solo lead in the women's division after 3 rounds of the 16th Asian Games Team Championship in the Guangzhou Chess Institute in Guangzhou, China. Visit chess.results.com for standings and results.

China beat Vietnam 2.5 to 1.5 on wins by Wang Yue and Ni Hua while Wang Hao drew on second board. FM Nguyen Duc Hoa scored one for Vietnam by beating GM Zhou Jianchao on the third board.

India, thanks to a fourth board win by GM G.N.Gopal against GM Vladimirov Yevgeniy, won 2.5- 1.5 against Kazakhistan as the other three boards ended in draws.

Four other teams, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Philippines are Iran are trailing behind with four match points. The top four teams will qualify for the semifinals after the seven round swiss.




In the women's section, favored China was held to a draw by India and thus both teams dropped to a share of second with five match points each. Vietnam leads alone with six match points after they beat Iran 2.5-1.5. See chess-results.com for results and standings.

On the other boards, Uzbekistan beat Qatar 3-1, Philippines thrashed Bangladesh 3-1, Iran made short work of Yeman 4-0, Krygyzstan blanked Korea 4-0, Maldvies bested Korea 3-1 and Mongolia edged Jordan 2.5 - 1.5.

In the women's section, all four Boards ended in draws between India and China, the score reading 2 - 2. Harika, Tania Sachdev, Karvade Eesha and Niosha Mohta drew with Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue and Huang Qian respectively.

From left, India's Harika Dronovali and Tania Sachdev

In the other matches Vietnam's Pham Le Thao Nguyen and Nguyen Thi Mai Hung won their games While on the top board WGM Hoang Thi Bao Tram lost to WGM Pourkashiyan Atousa. WGM Nguyen Thi Thanh An drew with WFM Hejazipour Mitra on the third board. In the other results of the day, Uzbekistan beat Mongolia 3.5 - .5, Turkmenistan nipped Bangladesh 2.5 - 1.5, Syria whitewashed Qatar 4-0 and Korea beat Jordan 2.5 - 1.5.

The Championship will be held in two phases. Phase one-Preliminaries- will be seven round Swiss to determine the four qualifiers for the semifinals. Each team's place in order of classifiication shall be decided by the number of Match points it has scored. Phase two will be Semifinals. Qualifiers will be paired by their Preliminaries ranking. Match A will be between 1 and 4 and Match B will be between 2 and 3. The two winners shall play the finals on 26th Nov. for gold and silver. The others will play for the bronze medal.

The Games are shown live on www.asia-chess.com