Game drawn, but Hua

Grandmaster P Harikrishna played out an easy draw in black with GM Ni Hua...

Grandmaster P Harikrishna played out an easy draw in black with GM Ni Hua of China in the third round of the 50th Reggio Emilia International chess tournament here.

The draw kept Harikrishna within striking distance of the three leaders on two points each and the Indian was quite happy with the way things turned out against Ni Hua who could not get an advantage with his white pieces.

It turned out to be yet another hard fought day but there were only two decisive games out of a possible five in this category-16 round robin tournament.

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Grandmaster Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan added a full point to his kitty after punishing the reckless play by David Navara of the Czech Republic. The other winner of the day was Russian Konstantin Landa who won a keenly contested game against Mihail Marin of Romania.

Top seed Zoltan Almasi of Hungary played out a draw with Dutchman Sergei Tiviakov while Italian GM Michele Godena signed peace with Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland.

With six rounds still to come in the nine-round tournament, Almasi, Landa and Gashimov share the lead with two points each while Harikrishna, Marin, Korchnoi and Ni Hua are a half point behind.

Eighth place is shared by the remaining three contestants Tiviakov, Godena and Navara on one point each.

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After the first round loss against Almasi, Harikrishna was half expecting that quite a few players will now turn to play the Italian opening against him and his hunch proved right as Ni Hua came up with the exact move order.

However, a game between the first and third rounds had given enough time for Harikrishna to prepare a new, albeit less played, system that the Indian uncorked in style.

Ni Hua played the opening quite fast, much to Harikrishna’s surprise, but subsequent exchanges only led to a balanced heavy pieces endgame where a draw was a just result.