Harikrishna finished with seven wins

Taiyuan: Alexander Motylev’s loss was P. Harikrishna’s gain.

While a thrilling draw helped the Indian clinch the second Sanjin Hotel Cup Grandmasters chess tournament here, his nearest rival suffered an agonising defeat to Bu Xiangzhi, thereby ruining his chances in the title-hunt.

Harikrishna, who had a half-point lead over Russian champion Alexander Motylev going into the last round, settled for peace with Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine. The result was good enough to give him the crown.

Harikrishna, world junior champion, scored 8.5 points in all with 7 victories, 4 draws and a lone loss against Motylev, who finished second with 7.5 points.

The third place was shared by Chinese duo of Wang Yue and Xiangzhi, who finished on 6.5 each.

Ni Hua of China finished fifth on 6 points while Karjakin was next in standing list along with Tgran Petrosian of Armenia on 5.5 points.

The last round was quite exciting for Harikrishna who could not help remember his world junior triumph late last year.

“It was (similar to) my world junior title position before the start of the last round,” Harikrishna said after the final game, adding “there too, I was with a half-point lead but my nearest contender was having a better tie-break score, so I could not go for a draw quickly.”

With the title, Harikrishna was richer by $4000.

The Indian, playing white, opened with the queen pawn and Karjakin showed his peaceful intentions by going for the Queen’s Gambit Accepted.

Keeping pieces on the board was Harikrishna’s idea of continuing and he did precisely that in one of the main variations in the early stages.

However Harikrishna went for many exchanges later on, and while it looked like Xiangzhi was home against Motylev, Karjakin was pleased to accept the draw proposal of the champion.

Motylev lost an engrossing battle against Xiangzhi, who played the black side of a Sicilian Nazdorf. Going for the English attack, the Russian was caught off guard by a direct attack against his own king and no matter what he tried, Xiangzhi’s energy compiled with his moves proved stronger. The game lasted 34 moves.

In other decisive games of the last round, Wang Hao of China lost to compatriot Zhang Pengiang while English GM Luke McShane’s poor run did not end against Wang Yue also.