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Harikrishna joint third with four to come
January 23, 2008 | Corus 2008, News
Grandmaster P Harikrishna drew with state-mate Koneru Humpy in the ninth round of the ‘B’ Group of Corus International Chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee in Holland.
Playing the black side of a Neo-Grunfeld, Harikrishna did not have much difficult in holding out his position as the central pawns got traded in quick time. Humpy went for quick exchanges leading to a drawn endgame and the queen side pawns were traded to diminish all hopes of an interesting game.
Harikrishna took his personal tally to 5 points out of a possible 9 while Humpy inched up to 4 points in all.
Grandmaster Sergei Movsesian remained in sole lead after settling for a draw with Nigel Short of England. The Slovak GM now has 6.5 points in all and leads the nearest rival Etienne Bacrot by a half point. Short stands sole third on 5.5 followed by Harikrishna, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Erwin L’Ami. With just four rounds to come, Harikrishna will look forward to score wins with his white pieces, the 10th round is important when the SUN-group sponsored meets an out-of-sort Armenian Gabrial Sargissian.
In the previous three rounds Harikrishna could notch only 1 point, losing to Jan Smeets from a level position ion round 6 and drawing with Nepomniachtchi and L’Ami respectively in the 7 th and 8th round. A finishing spurt is what the Hyderabad-based needs right now.
A lot happened in the ‘A’ group in the 9th round. Carlsen’s aspirations suffered a setback against Leko in a wild game where the former played black. It was a blunder in the end that gave Leko a full point. Aronian joined Carlsen in lead on 5.5/9. Yes that’s the leading score in ‘A’ group. Plus four should win here. Mostly solely. Anand drew with Gelfand in quick time to be on 5/9 and a shared third spot.
And it was a well-preserved opening Novelty that gave Topalov a victory over Kramnik. For those who had been worried about and had given up the Moscow variation as white will now have some analytical work to do! Topalov played really well, his ‘a4′ was a star move.
In the ‘C’ group Parimarjan Negi was held to a draw by Mark Van Der Werf. This has been a good recovery by the teenager who now has 5.5 points. He started off with 0/2.
Results round 9 Group ‘A’: Michael Adams (Eng, 5) beat Loek van Wely (Ned, 4); Levon Aronian (Arm, 5.5) drew with Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 3); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 4.5) drew with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 4.5); Judit Polgar (Hun, 4) drew with Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 5); Veselin Topalov (Bul, 4.5) beat Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 3) drew with Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 5); Peter Leko (Hun, 4.5) beat Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 5.5).
Group ‘B’: Sergei Movsesian (Svk, 6.5) drew with Nigel Short (Eng, 5.5); Jan Smeets (Ned, 4.5) lost to Wouter Spoelman (Ned, 2); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 5) beat Daniel Stellwagen (Ned, 4.5); Erwin L’Ami (Ned, 5) beat Yifan Hou (Chn, 3.5); Koneru Humpy (Ind, 4) drew with P. Harikrishna (Ind, 5); Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 3) drew with Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 6); Ivan Cheparinov (Bul, 4.5) beat Michal Krasenkow (Pol, 4).
Group ‘C’: Zhaoqin Peng (Ned, 2.5) drew with Irina Krush (Usa, 3.5); Mark van der Werf (Ned, 4.5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 5.5); Dennis Ruijgrok (Ned, 1.5) lost to Friso Nijboer (Ned, 5.5); Dimitry Reinderman (Ned, 6.5) beat Anna Ushenina (Ukr, 3.5); E. Grivas (Gre, 4.5) lost to Shilong Li (Chn, 4); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 7) beat John van der Wiel (Ned, 5); Pontus Carlsson (Swe, 4.5) beat Arik Braun (Ger, 5)
For tournament pictures, click here