Chess: Parimarjan to take on Andreikin in Rd 7

Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi will hope to recover lost ground when he takes on Russian Dmitry Andreikin in the seventh round of the Young Grandmasters tournament, a part of 43rd Biel Chess Festival in Biel, Switzerland.

After the lone rest day, battle resumes in the category-17 event with Fabiano Caruana of Italy still in front on four points out of a possible six.

The tournament has thus far seen just nine decisive games out of a possible 30 and Negi has been involved in three of them ending on the losing side on all the occasions.

However, the Indian who has been nominated for the Arjuna Award this year by the Indian Chess Federation has staged a recovery of sorts by drawing the last three games.

The fact that he has two white games remaining out of  the last three gives some hopes of further revival but for that the Indian will have to do well in the next round against Andreikin.

The games have been entertaining and Caruana has been in sublime form. The 2009 Corus 'B' group winner has won two and drawn the rest of his games and he still has a game left with one of the tail enders - David Howell of England whom he meets in the last round.

As many as five players - top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, Maxim Rodshtein of Israel, Philippines' Wesley So and Russian duo of Evgeny Tomashevsky and Andreikin share the second spot with 3.5 points.

The 'super solid' Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam lies sole seventh on three points having drawn all his games so far in the tournament while Dutch Anish Giri is lying eighth on 2.5, a full point ahead of Negi and Howell.

Rodshtein started the tournament as the lowest ranked player but has shown that ratings are not the only criteria to judge a player.

The young Israeli who has been working with Levon Aronian and Boris Gelfand - two players from the world elite - started off with a victory over Negi in the first round and since then has been consistent barring a debacle against Wesley.

Surprisingly, Vachier-Lagrave has not been allowed to show his true potential by his opponents so far. The Frenchman is currently ranked 22nd in the world and many experts had predicted that he will sail through this field before the start of the event.

However, as the events have turned out, a lone victory and five draws have been the story here for Vachier-Lagrave so far.

Tomashevsky has had the dubious distinction of playing the least number of moves in his five draws and he also benefitted from a blunder by Negi in his only victory while Andreikin has mixed caution with aggression in some of his games.

Negi had signed the peace treaty with Giri in his sixth round match.

Pairings (Round 7): Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 1.5) vs Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 3.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3.5) vs Evgeny Tomashevsky (Rus, 3.5); Maxim Rodshtein (Isr, 3.5) vs David Howell (Eng, 1.5); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 4) Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5); Wesley So (Phi, 3.5) Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Vie, 3).