Harikrishna Scores 50% In Wijk aan Zee

By Arvind Aaron

Former world junior champion Pentala Harikrishna lost the final round game to Boris Gelfand of Israel in a long pawn ending to finish seventh in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament with a fifty percentage score on January 26, 2014.

World No.2 Levon Aronian of Armenia won the event with a round to spare suffered a solo final round defeat to Tilburg grandmaster Loek Van Wely. Despite the final round defeat, Aronian played at a stunning 2912.

Harikrishna would be gaining rating despite the final round defeat. He won three games, lost three games and drew five in the 12-player all-play-all contest. Harikrishna played at 2746, way above his start rating of 2706.

Final placings: 1 L Aronian (Arm) 8/11; 2-3. A Giri (Ned), S Karjakin (Rus) 6.5 each; 4-6. F Caruana (Ita), L Dominguez (Cub), Wesley So (Phi) 6 each; 7 P Harikrishna (Ind) 5.5; 8-9. Loek Van Wely (Ned), H Nakamura (USA) 5 each; 10 B Gelfand (Isr) 4.5; 11-12. R Rapport (Hun), A Naiditch (Ger) 3.5 each.