The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Harikrishna jumps into joint lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 26, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Harikrishna jumps into joint lead

Hoogeveen (The Netherlands): World junior champion P. Harikrishna defeated women's world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and jumped into the joint lead after the second round of the Crown group in the Essent chess tournament here.

Top seed Ivan Sokolov emerged victorious against Aeroflot Open winner Emil Sutovsky of Israel to share the lead with Harikrishna.

As things stand after the end of the second round of the category-16 tournament, Harikrishna and Sokolov share the lead with 1.5 points apiece while Stefanova and Sutovsky are in joint third spot on half a point each with four more rounds to go.

Playing the black side of a Slav defence, Harikrishna faced a relatively new idea on the 13th move but as things progressed it was quite clear that Stefanova's plan was not a real improvement on existing theory.

Stefanova was at her wits end once the game took a sudden tactical turn and she ended up losing two rooks for her queen when the dust settled.

Stefanova thought she had her chances after another piece sacrifice, given the slightly uncomfortable state of the black king but Harikrishna had planned out the endgame.

"It's a nice win and that it has come with black is more satisfying," said Harikrishna.

Ivan Sokolov took advantage of some reckless play by Sutovsky in the middle game arising out of a Grunfeld defence.

Having attained a balanced position, Sutovsky got the planning wrong and had to pay dearly when Meanwhile in the open section, International Master-in-waiting Parimarjan Negi scored over Stephen Giddins of England when the former failed to turn back to board in the middle game and was declared lost on time by the chief arbiter. — PTI

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