Tata Steel Masters: Harikrishna draws with Espenko

Sweden’s Nils Grandelius, a late replacement like Harikrishna, was the surprise leader after beating Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda for a second win.

P. Harikrishna drew with Russia’s Andrey Esipenko in 47 moves in the second round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament.

P. Harikrishna drew with Russia’s Andrey Esipenko in 47 moves in the second round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee on Sunday.

Playing white for the second straight day, Harikrishna (one point) found himself in a slightly inferior position late in the middle-game but made amends with a series of accurate moves.

Sweden’s Nils Grandelius, a late replacement like Harikrishna, was the surprise leader after beating Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda for a second win.

World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana was the other winner of the day.

Second-round results:  P. Harikrishna (1) drew with Andrey Esipenko (Rus, 1); Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 0.5) lost to Nils Grandelius (Swe, 2); David Anton (Esp, 1) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1.5); Alexander Donchenko (Ger, 0) lost to Fabiano Caruana (USA, 1.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1) drew with Alireza Firouzja (FIDE, 0.5); Aryan Tari (Nor, 0.5) drew with Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol, 1); Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 1) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 1,.5).