FIDE Grand Prix Tournament: Contrasting draws for Vidit, Hari

Vidit Gujrathi drew with group leader Levon Aronian and P. Harikrishna fell well short of proving his superiority over veteran Alexei Shirov in the fourth round of the FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament in Berlin on Monday.

Vidit Gujrathi drew with group leader Levon Aronian in the fourth round of the FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament in Berlin on Monday. (File Photo)

Vidit Gujrathi drew with group leader Levon Aronian and P. Harikrishna fell well short of proving his superiority over veteran Alexei Shirov in the fourth round of the FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament in Berlin on Monday.

With two rounds remaining in the league, Vidit and Harikrishna have two points each. They need to strike big when the action resumes after a day’s rest. Only the group leaders from the four four-player groups will advance to the semifinals.

 

Vidit needed 38 moves to hold Aronian for the second time in four days. Hari could not break Shirov’s defence in their marathon lasting 76 moves. The game ended when only the kings remained on the board.

At the end of the round that produced three decisive games, Wesley So appeared the best placed aspirant to reach the semifinals. He posted his second win after facing fellow American Leinier Dominguez Perez to reach three points. Vladimir Fedoseev and Daniil Dubov were the other winners.

At present, Hikaru Nakamura (Group A), Fedoseev, Radosław Wojtaszek, (Group B), Aronian (Group C) and So (Group D) are the front-runners to advance to the knockout phase.