Harikrishna holds Ivanchuk

Crimea, Ukraine:

Pendyala Harikrishna played out an easy draw with former World championship finalist and second seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine to stay afloat in the Aerosvit International Grandmasters chess tournament. After his first round draw with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania this turned out to be another good result for eighth-seed Harikrishna in the category-18 round robin tournament between 12 players. The second day of the event was marred by draws as not a single game ended decisively. As a result the status quo was maintained and three first round winners, Viktor Bologan of Moldova, Ukrainian Andrei Volokitin and twice world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan remained atop the tables with 1.5 points apiece. Harikrishna retained his joint fourth spot on one point from his two games and he is now in the company of Alexei Shirov of Spain, Alexander Grischuk of Russia, Ukrainians Ivanchuk and Alexander Areshchenko and Nisipeanu who all have the same score. Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, his compatriot and former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov and Sergei Rublevsky of Russia are still languishing at the bottom of the standing list with just half a point so far. 10 rounds still remain in one of the strongest tournament this year. Harikrishna's opening preparation was tested against Ivanchuk who played black and equalised comfortably in the Petroff defence employed by the Indian. It was a topical variation in the Petroff defence that gave Ivanchuk an easy game right from the beginning after he went for a set up he had earlier employed against Peter Leko of Hungary during the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament held earlier this year. Harikrishna was quick to realise that the opening did not go too well for him and took the easier route leading to a balanced heavy pieces endgame after all minor pieces changed hands early in the middle game. The players signed truce after just 24 moves. (PTI)