Harikrishna back to winning ways

World Junior Champion P Harikrishna outplayed Spanish hope Miguel Illescas Cordoba in the fifth round climbing two places up in the standings of the category-16 Dos Hermanas International Chess in Spain on Wednesday.

After his loss to lowest ranked Ruben Felgaer of Argentina in the previous round, this turned out to be a fine comeback by Harikrishna with still four rounds to go in the Euros 16000 prize tournament.

The lead positions changed hands as Azerbaijani sensation Teimour Radjabov showed his mettle against world's youngest ever Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine. Radjabov took his tally to 3.5 points out of his five games and was followed by Karjakin, Zurab Azmaiparashvili of Georgia, and Felgaer in the 10-player biennial round-robin event.

Harikrishna was next in line along with defending champion Alexander Rustemov and Oleg Korneev of Russia on 2.5 points apiece while top seed and pre-tournament favourite Alexey Dreev was pushed down to seventh spot after his defeat against Azmaiparshvili in this round.

The ninth spot is jointly held by Cordoba and Cuban Lenier Dominguez who both have 1.5 points.

Harikrishna was looking for a victory right from day one and luckily for him, it has not come at a time where it might perceived to be quite late already. The Indian had beaten Ollescas in their earlier encounter during the Chess Olympiad and this victory came as encore.

Playing the white side of a Slav defence, Harikrishna went for a complicated variation and outplayed Cordoba in the middle game with some deft manoeuvres.

The Spaniard lost an exchange apparently for some counter play after the dust subsided but Harikrishna knocked down his extra pawns in quick time to reach a double rook versus rook and minor piece endgame that was child's play. The game lasted 44 moves.

The fifth round produced maximum number of three decisive games for the first time in the event. And gaining maximum was Radjabov who had it easy against Karjakin who played the black side of a Scotch opening.

Right from the middle game, Radjabov had proceedings under control as his pieces made a consistent effort to pierce through the black kingside. The Azerbaijani succeeded after an error-filled counter play plan by Karjakin that allowed him to make a decisive foray with a copybook king side attack with a pawn sacrifice. Karjakin resigned in just 31 moves.

The other win of the day was scored by Azmaiparashvili who is also the FIDE Vice President. For once, the Georgian played uncompromising chess right from the word go, and downed Dreev with black pieces in Slav defence opening.

It was an interesting queen-less middle game that Dreev arrived at in one of the less played variation but soon after white's pieces gained vital squares and the central pawns rolled to do the damage. Dreev first lost an exchange and later a fine return of favour by Azmaiparashvili led to a won Bishops endgame in 46 moves.

In other games of the day, Felgaer drew with Korneev in a Sicilian Sveshnikov opening game while Rustemov could do no better against Dominguez and signed peace in 61 moves.