India’s Grand Master Pentala Harikrishna rose to the second position after three rounds late on Monday night in the Tata Steel Chess tournament. He shares the place with four other players, including World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway, each sitting pretty on two points.
Ukraine’s World No. 14 Pavel Eljanov, with two-and-a-half points, is the current leader in this elite tournament that draws the world’s best chess players every year.
Harikrishna, ranked No. 11 with an ELO of 2770, has notched up one victory against his Indian counterpart Adhiban Baskaran and two draws against World No. 7 Levon Aronian of Armenia and Eljanov.
“I am satisfied with the way I am playing,” Harikrishna said, after his draw against Eljanov on Monday. “But there is a long way to go still. I have 10 more games to play,” he added, in his typically modest way.
“It was an interesting opening and we got to a position where we could have repeated our moves. But Eljanov played to win and I got into a slightly better position. Finally, though, it was a rook endgame and we shared the point,” Harikrishna continued.
The Indian star takes on Sergey Karjakin of Russia later on Tuesday evening. He scored his first victory on Sunday night, outsmarting Adhiban in a long drawn out game. They were locked in the Archangelysk Variation for close to four hours until Harikrishna lured him into a trap in the endgame.
Tata Steel Chess is an annual tournament in a northern town of The Netherlands, popularly known as the Wimbledon of chess. In the Masters section, 14 Grand Masters pit their brains against each other in 13 rounds.
