B. Adhiban continued to make his presence felt as he proved equal to World champion Magnus Carlsen in 49 moves after briefly enjoying positional superiority during their 11th round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament on Friday.
The day also saw P. Harikrishna hold Anish Giri in a thrilling tactical warfare lasting 36 moves. There were times when Hari looked in trouble but the Indian found the precise continuation to come out with a creditable draw.
The draw with Carlsen raised Adhiban’s tally to 5.5 points and kept him in the joint fourth place. Carlsen with six points slipped to third after China’s Wei Yi stunned Sergey Karjakin to occupy the second spot behind leader Wesley So.
Like Hari, Adhiban also played with black pieces and gave a good account of himself in this Centre Counter game. Adhiban benefited from some of the sub-optimal moves by Carlsen and the young Indian did enjoy an edge for a brief period before peace was signed.
With this, Adhiban has earned the bragging rights for having scored 1.5 points off the two players – champion Carlsen and challenger Karjakin – involved in the last World championship title-clash.
In a game of fluctuating fortunes, Giri faced Hari in English Symmetrical and chose to sacrifice a bishop early to seize the initiative. Hari returned the minor piece, played aggressively and eventually looked better after his rival erred on the 28th move. However, Hari let slip the advantage on the very next move. Thereafter, sanity returned to the proceedings and draw was agreed after 36 moves.
Earlier, So took a short, 25-move draw from Dmitry Andreikin to move to 7.5 points. With two rounds to go, So is half a point ahead of Wei and one ahead of Carlsen.
The results:
11th round; Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 6.5) drew with B. Adhiban (5.5); Anish Giri (Ned, 5.5) drew with P. Hari Krishna (5.5); Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 4.5) drew with Wesley So (USA, 7.5); Richard Rapport (Hun, 4) drew with Loek van Wely (Ned, 2.5); Wei Yi (Chn, 7) bt Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 6).
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