World Junior Champion P Harikrishna decided to play it safe and opted for a quick draw with tournament leader Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan in the eighth and penultimate round of Category-16 Dos Hermanas Chess tournament in Spain on Saturday.
After the draw, the road to victory was almost cleared for Radjabov who maintained his slender half point lead over Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, Zurab Azmaiparashvili of Georgia and defending champion Alexander Rustemov of Russia in the Euros 16000 prize money tournament.
With just one round remaining in the 10-player round-robin tournament, Radjabov has 5 points in his kitty while Harikrishna slipped to joint fifth spot in the standing list on 4 points.
Giving the Indian company here was top seed Alexey Dreev of Russia and Ruben Felgaer of Argentina.
The Hyderabad-based will now at least like to make a draw in the last round game against Cuban Lenier Dominguez, who is currently at the bottom of the tables, to make sure he adds something to his present ELO rating.
In fact, a victory in the last game can even push Harikrishna to joint second spot as the players ahead of him might like to play it safe too.
In the game against Radjabov, however, Harikrishna could do little as the Azerbaijani played simply too safe with his white pieces.
Employing the Scotch opening, Radjabov went for the exchange of queens very early in the opening signaling his peaceful intentions and after a mere 13 moves proposed the draw that was accepted by Harikrishna.
For the third day in succession, the round produced just one decisive game and this time the beneficiary was Rustemov who outplayed compatriot Oleg Korneev who played the black side of a Benoni defence.
Spurning down an unconditional draw offer through repetition of moves in the middle game, Rustemov showed character and went all out for a victory with uncompromising play.
The efforts of the younger Russian were soon rewarded as Korneev parted with a piece for two pawns hoping to create some counter play that never materialised. Rustemov picked up another piece en route to his 62-moves triumph.
For once, even Alexey Dreev did not try too hard. The most regarded player has not been able to find his magical touch here and decided not to press hard in an unclear position against Miguel Illescas Cordoba of Spain.
Earlier, the two battled a popular variation of the Semi Slav defence and Dreev had parted with an exchange to keep himself going. The game lasted just 25 moves.
Also ending in the same number of moves was the game between Karjakin and Azmaiparashvili. It was a Caro Cann defence that did not give Karjakin, white, the leverage he wanted and after subsequent exchanges of minor pieces the peace was agreed to.
In the other game of the day, Dominguez drew with Felgaer in 33 moves of a Sicilian Maroczy bind when both players repeated the position.
