Bengaluru, Sept. 16 -- Being the team to beat is an odd burden in sport. India will carry it to the Fide Chess Olympiad, which begins in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Wednesday, along with a line-up that makes the 'defending champion' tag feel both deserved and demanding. The Open team, seeded second behind the USA, is packed with star players: reigning world champion D Gukesh, the year's most impressive player R Praggnanandhaa, the chaotic, creative genius Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin and Vidit Gujrathi. The top-seeded women's team will have Women's World Championship challenger Vaishali R, reigning World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, two-time world rapid champion Koneru Humpy, as well as Vantika Agrawal and Savitha Shri Baskar. "In the pre-2700-2750 rated Indian team, it was not required to have a huge level of secrecy because players were not facing each other at high-stakes events. But once that happened, we couldn't discuss openings and certain things as freely as we could have when they were at a slightly lower level," Open section team captain Srinath Narayanan said. Things were especially tough in the 2023 Asian Games. "The tension between the players was at its peak then because it was the first time that we had teammates being rivals with each other directly and the Candidates cycle was ending in just a few months from then." Narayanan said, they came up with a system of having one coach per player to maintain privacy in preparation. The US will start as the Open top seed by rating in the 11-round classical tournament ahead of defending champions India and hosts Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan have World Championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, leading their line-up. Then, there's the tiny matter of the board order. With four players making up one team, where each player sits can matter. The challenge is to get the strategy and order right and make the most of what each player brings. It is likely that the top two boards could be between Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh with Arjun on Board 3 and Nihal on Board 4 in the Open section event. In the women's section, Vaishali and Divya could take up the top two boards with Humpy on the third board and Vantika on Board 4. For Gukesh, who has been struggling with form, the Olympiad is his final tournament appearance before the World Championship in November. It's not been a great start so far to the Samarkand Olympiad with national teams being stranded without rooms for hours together after landing in the Uzbek city. Narayanan wrote on X: "Having a terrible experience at the Olympiad. The team landed 5 hours ago at Samarkand airport. The team still haven't been allotted hotel rooms, with absolutely no clarity on when it'll be allotted." It's a terrible indictment of the local organisers that national teams should have to go through this on the eve of the tournament. ".appalling stories about teams being placed in dormitories with shared toilets. Some rooms have no internet. Some teams have to leave before 1 pm to play a 3pm game because they are placed that far away," Singapore Chess Federation CEO Kevin Goh Wei Ming, wrote on X. While the Indian players were allotted rooms after a long wait, coaches have been initially forced to share rooms. Incidentally, in the opening press conference on Tuesday, when Uzbek star Abdusattorov was asked about his most memorable Olympiad experience, he singled out the 2022 Olympiad, which was held in Chennai. "I think conditions are incredibly important for players. It directly impacts your confidence, mood and results. In Chennai, we had an amazing time and it was part of our success." Uzbekistan won the gold medal in the Open section in that edition....