World Junior Champion P Harikrishna survived some anxious moments before drawing with world's youngest ever Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine in the sixth round of the category-16 Dos Hermanas International Chess tournament in Spain on Thursday.
The hard-earned draw helped Harikrishna retain his joint fifth spot in the overall standings in this round-robin tournament that carries the winner's purse of Euros 6000.
However, little changed at the top as draws ruled the roost in the sixth round and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan maintained his slender half point lead over nearest rivals Zurab Azmaiparashvili of Georgia, Ruben Felgaer of Argentina and Karjakin who all have 3.5 points in their kitty.
Harikrishna is next in line along with defending champion Alexander Rustemov of Russia on 3 points and other Russians Alexey Dreev, Oleg Korneev and Miguel Illescas Cordoba of Spain are another half point adrift. The last place in the 10-player event remained sealed by Cuban Lenier Dominguez with just three rounds to come.
It was a tough call for Harikrishna to play black against Karjakin. Playing the Tchigorin variation of the Ruy Lopez, Harikrishna was saddled with a passive position in the middle game wherein he could make little progress while Karjakin had all the time to improve his position.
All the same, the Indian refrained from making any weakness in his position and even though most of his pieces were confined to the defence it was a kind of position that remained impregnable for Karjakin.
The Ukrainian went for some exchanges after getting nearly tired of Harikrishna's resourceful play and subsequently the players arrived at a minor piece endgame where once again, Harikrishna's position was worse but without any weakness that could not be protected.
Karjakin probed for quite sometime before saying enough is enough. The marathon lasted 84 moves.
Cordoba remained the most uncompromising player of the event. The Spaniard has been involved in as many as five decisive battles out of a possible six in the event and he did not disappoint once again in taking on Korneev who fell hook line and sinker playing the black side of a queen's gambit declined.
It was a tense middle game for Cordoba but he kept the dynamic balance with timely exchanges and knocked down one pawn with a simple tactical trick. The ensuing rook and pawns endgame turned out to be child's play and Korneev threw in the towel after 64 moves.
Radjabov had it easy against Rustemov in the English opening game. Playing white, Rustemov could enthuse some tactical complications after an early pawn sacrifice but Radjabov ensured he was never much worse. After exchanges led to a heavy pieces endgame, the draw was a natural result in 34 moves.
Dreev's hunt for an elusive victory continued as he was held to a draw by Dominguez. Throwing caution to the winds, Dreev changed gears and employed the Sicilian Classical but a quite choice by Dominguez led to a level endgame and this one also lasted 34 moves.