Harikrishna jumps into the lead

World junior champion P Harikrishna exhibited his brilliant skills to defeat women’s world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and...

World junior champion P Harikrishna exhibited his brilliant skills to defeat women’s world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and jump into the joint lead after the second round of the Crown group of Essent chess tournament here.

With his first victory in the event, Harikrishna made sure of his joint lead in the tournament even as top seed and local favourite Ivan Sokolov emerged victorious against Aeroflot open winner Emil Sutovsky of Israel.

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 were in joint third spot on half a point each with four more rounds to go in the event.

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

“I play this position myself as white, so I had some ideas of course,” Harikrishna said after the game. “It’s a nice win and that it has come with black is more satisfying,” he added.

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

Stefanova thought she had her chances after another piece sacrifice given the slightly uncomfortable state of black king but Harikrishna had seen a beautiful finale that had checkmate written all over the board.