World junior champion Pendyala Harikrishna defeated Grandmaster Bartlomiej Macieja of Poland in the fourth round to elevate himself to second place in the International Invitational chess tournament in Bermuda.
After his first victory in the Category-17 event, the Indian has 2.5 points. In the process, he joined Grandmaster Boris Gelfand of Israel in second position.
Brazilian Grandmaster Giovanni Vescovi carved out yet another fine victory to emerge the sole leader on three points. He defeated Ukraine champion Andrei Volokitin.
With six rounds remaining in this double round-robin tournament, Cuban Lenier Dominiguez occupies the fourth place, with two points, while Volokitin is next in line with 1.5 points.
After succumbing to his third defeat in four games, Macieja, also the lowest rated player in the event, is at the bottom of the table with just half a point.
Harikrishna survived some anxious moments before getting the full point against Macieja in a game that lasted 37 moves.
Playing white, the Indian employed the Capablanca variation to counter the Nimzo Indian defence and Macieja went for a relatively less played plan that caught Harikrishna by surprise.
In the middle game, Macieja manoeuvred his pieces well to trouble Harikrishna's king. At one point of time the Pole even had a tangible advantage with his knights making a foray into opposition territory.
However, Harikrishna defended with some precision play and walked his king away to the queenside for an artificial castling.
Once the attack stopped Macieja appeared a completely different player, not sensing the dangers ahead. Harikrishna quickly deployed his pieces on vital squares and a forced sequence of moves led to a lethal attack for the Indian.
Vescovi was in his element against Volokitin, who played the black side of a King's Indian attack.
The Brazilian initiated an attack against the king soon after Volokitin castled and clearly outplayed him in tactical complexities that started with a piece sacrifice.
Guarding his defence quite well, Volokitin forcibly transposed to an endgame but lost a pawn in the process that proved decisive as Vescovi wrapped the issue in 44 moves.
Gelfand drew with Dominiguez in just 20 moves of a semi-Slav defence game where the former played white.
Gelfand signalled his peaceful intentions with a harmless set-up in the opening and at the time of the draw agreement only three pawns had changed hands.
Results: P Harikrishna (Ind, 2.5) beat B Macieja (Pol, 0.5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 2.5) drew Lenier Dominiguez (Cub, 2); Giovanni Vescovi (Bra, 3) beat Andrei Volokitin (Ukr, 1.5).
The moves:
P Harikrishna vs Bartlomiej Macieja
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 c5 5. dxc5 O-O 6. a3 Bxc5 7. Nf3 b6 8. Bf4 Nc6 9. Rd1 Bb7 10. e4 Ne7 11. h3 Ng6 12. Bh2 Nh5 13. Qd2 f5 14. exf5 Bxf3 15. gxf3 Nh4 16. Be2 Qf6 17. Qd3 Ng2 18. Kd2 Nhf4 19. Bxf4 Nxf4 20. Qe4 Qh6 21. Kc2 Rae8 22. Kb1 exf5 23. Qc2 Bxf2 24. Bd3 Nxd3 25. Rxd3 Re1 26. Rxe1 Bxe1 27. Rxd7 Qxh3 28. Qd1 Qh4 29. Qd5 Kh8 30. Nb5 h5 31. Nd6 Qf4 32. Qe6 Bh4 33. Qg6 Bf6 34. Qxh5 Kg8 35. Nxf5 Rc8 36. Qg6 Qe5 37. Nh6 black resigned.
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