Grandmaster P Harikrishna was ousted from the ACP World Rapid Cup chess tournament after losing the Armageddon game against Russian Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich in the first round in Odessa, Ukraine, on Saturday.
Harikrishna, a former world junior champion, was extremely unlucky, as he had a winning position on board but did not have enough time left to complete the game.
It all started as a shock for the Indian who lost the first game in the rapid only to strike back and level scores.
The tiebreaker that ensued under blitz chess against saw Morozevich winning the first game but yet again Harikrishna bounced back to take the game to a sudden death.
As the rules stipulated, Harikrishna, as black, got four minutes for the entire game against Morozevich's five and simply outclassed the Russian in all departments except the clock.
Playing the black side of a Ruy Lopez, Harikrishna got an opening advantage and nurtured it well in to the middle game.
Morozevich lost a pawn but recovered it back with some precise play only to blunder a couple of pawns in the crucial stage.
However, by this time Harikrishna did not have much time left and despite having two extra pawns in a rook and pawns endgame, he was declared lost on time.
Earlier, playing white in the first game of the day, Harikrishna was drubbed by Morozevich in quick time from an Old Indian defence game.
Results, Round 1:
Ivan Sokolov (Ned) lost to Peter Leko (Hun) 0.5-1.5; Sergey Rublevsky (Rus) beat Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger) 1.5-0.5; Ilia Smirin (Isr) lost to Alexei Shirov (Esp) 0.5-1.5; Boris Gelfand (Isr) beat Hikaru Nakamura (Usa) 2-0; P Harikrishna (Ind) lost to Alexander Morozevich (Rus) 1-1, 1-1, 0-1.
© 2024 Rediff.com -