A jetlagged P Harikrishna went down to top seed Zoltan Almasi of Hungary in the first round of the 50th Reggio Emilia chess tournament here.

Evidently tired after arriving from an event in Mexico where he finished second to Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Harikrishna could not find his rhythm on the first day of this category-16 traditional tournament that has 10-players from different countries playing in a round-robin format. Apart from Almasi, Romanian Mihail Marin was the other winner on the opening day, scoring an upset victory over Sergei Tiviakov of Holland.

It turned out to be a tough outing for Harikrishna against Almasi as the Indian was pushed to the defence early in the opening.

Harikrishna missed a difficult chance to equalise in the early middle game and his pieces slowly turned passive while Almasi rolled on.

In the middle game, a timely onslaught helped the Hungarian to tighten the noose on the queen side and it was soon all over for Harikrishna.

The day in fact featured as many as three games that had Italian opening on board and coming out trumps against it was Marin who played imaginatively against Tiviakov.

Results (round 1): Zoltan Almasi (Hun) bt P Harikrishna (Ind); Konstantin Landa (Rus) drew with Viktor Korchnoi (Sui); Michele Godena (Ita) drew with Vugar Gashimov (Aze); Ni Hua (Chn) drew with David Navara (Cze); Sergei Tiviakov (Ned) lt to Mihail Marin (Rou).