FIDE World Cup: Harikrishna draws first game with Jose Martinez

Panaji (Goa), Nov 14 (PTI) Indian Grandmaster P Harikrishna started his fifth round campaign with a relatively easy draw against Jose Eduardo Martinex Alcantara of Mexico in the first game of the fifth round of the FIDE World Cup here on Friday.

Up against someone who has defied all odds to be in the fifth round, Harikrishna knew that Martinez could be a force to reckon with if given his type of position.

However, the immense experience of the Indian came to the fore as he chose the Two Knights variation as black against the Italian opening of the Peruvian-Mexican Grandmaster.

Martinez had two upset victories in the last two matches against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and Alexey Sarana of Serbia but he did not get much with his white pieces against the Indian who has himself been in top form here with very clean games thus far.

The middle game featured routine manoeuvres with Martinez having an extra pawn at the cost of a fractured pawn structure and his choice of going for a queen exchange in the middle game was indication enough that he had not found his best trait in this round.

If there is one thing that does not bother Harikrishna much, it's the endgame. The Indian is known for his expertise in this department of the game and despite being a pawn less, he had no problems whatsoever in getting a draw in 41 moves.

With just 16 players out of 206 participants that started the event remaining in the fray, most of the players decided against taking undue risk and wait for the next game. As a result, the all-Russian duel between Andrey Esipenko and Aleksey Grebnev ended in a draw without much ado while Armenian Gabriel Sargissian also got a same result with Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan.

In another drawn game among the eight rounds, Alexander Doncheko of Germany signed peace with Liem Le Quang of Vietnam.

The USD 2 million prize money event will see some heated battles in the rounds to come as the players train their eyes to get a place in to the top three in order to qualify for the next Candidates tournament.

The Candidates will be played next year to determine the challenger for D Gukesh in the next world championship contest.

Caruana Fabiano of United States, Anish Giri of Holland and Matthias Bluebaum of Germany have already qualified for the event while Indian R Praggnanadhaa is also almost assured of a place among the eight qualifying places. Hikaru Nakamura of United States is also most likely assured a place while the remaining three will be picked from here.

Available results round 5 game 1: Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb) playing Frederic Svane (Ger); Arjun Erigaisi (Ind) playing Levon Aronia (Usa); Sam Shankland (Usa) playing Daniil Dubov (FID); Alexander Donchenko (Ger) drew with Liem Le Quang (Vie); Gabriel Sargissian (Arm) drew with Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb); Andrey Esipenko (Fid) drew with Aleksey Grebnev (Fid); Sevian Samuel (Usa) playing Wei Yi (Chn); Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara (Mex) drew with P Harikrishna (Ind). PTI COR APA APA APA