The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Harikrishna shares title with Gelfand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Harikrishna shares title with Gelfand

BERMUDA, FEB. 10. P. Harikrishna emerged as joint winner in the International invitational chess tournament after clinching his last round match against Grandmaster Bartlomiej Macieja of Poland here.

Harikrishna shared the title in this category-17 double round-robin tournament with Boris Gelfand of Israel as both the players ended with 6 points each out of a possible 10.

Ukrainian champion Andrei Volokitin and Lenier Dominguez of Cuba tied for the third spot, a full point behind the joint winners while Giovanni Vescovi of Brazil finished fifth on 4.5 points. Macieja, who suffered a string of defeats, finished at the bottom of the table with just 3.5 points.

The victory for Harikrishna, close on the heels of his triumph in the World juniors late last year, gave him as many as 14 ELO points from the tournament and the Indian will edge up to 2646 now, just four shy of the coveted 2650 mark — an important milestone for Grandmasters.

Harikrishna also became richer by $1750 after sharing the first prize with Gelfand.

While Gelfand remained the only unbeaten player of the event with two victories and eight draws, Harikrishna made his presence felt with three victories, a lone loss against Gelfand and six draws.

Seeded fifth, it was a commendable performance by the Hyderabad based player as he had to win the last two rounds to catch up an almost out-of-reach Gelfand.

Exciting clash

In an exciting clash against Macieja in the final board, Harikrishna, who had defeated the player earlier in the tournament, played uncompromising chess from the beginning with black against the Guico Piano and was suitably rewarded for his effort as his rival went astray under time pressure.

``He took a lot of time in the middle game. I feel his 17th move was inaccurate as I got a free game thereon'', Harikrishna said after the game.

It was not only the clock that troubled Macieja thereafter as Harikrishna launched a powerful attack all over the board and the Pole found some temporary solace in sacrificing two pieces for a rook.

However, with some very good manoeuvres Harikrishna managed to turn the tide decisively in his favour. Macieja lost his rook for Bishop before resigning after 40 moves.

``It was very complicated right from the middle game and though I feel I was not worse, he could have done better'', Harikrishna said.

The results (final round):

Bartlomiej Macieja (Pol, 3.5) lost to P. Harikrishna (Ind, 6); Lenier Dominguez (Cub, 5) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr, 6); Andrei Volokitin (Ukr, 5) bt Giovanni Vescovi (Bra, 4.5).

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