Grandmaster P Harikrishna was held to a draw by GM Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan in the fifth round of the 50th edition of Reggio Emilia International Chess tournament here.

The draw with black was not a bad result for Harikrishna, who had to work hard to maintain parity in this keenly contested game against the latest Azerbaijani star. The fifth round of the category-16 tournament had three out of five games ending decisively.

Zoltan Almasi of Hungary surged ahead in the tournament outplaying Mihail Marin of Romania, Dutch GM Sergei Tiviakov found a stronger customer in Ni Hua of China while David Navara of Czech Republic scored his first victory in the tournament at the expense of veteran Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland.

The other game of the day between Michele Godena of Italy and Konstantin Landa of Russia ended in a draw. With four rounds still to come in the 10-player round-robin tournament, top seed Almasi leads the field with 3.5 points, followed by Harikrishna, Ni Hua, Gashimov and Landa who have three points each.

It seems the battle for the title is only between these five as the remaining contestants are a point adrift.
Results (5th round): Vugar Gashimov (Aze, 3) drew P Harikrishna (Ind, 3); Zoltan Almasi (Hun, 3.5) bt Mihail Marin (Rom, 2); Ni Hua (Chn, 3) bt Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 2); David Navara (Cze, 2) bt Viktor Korchnoi (Sui, 2); Michele Godena (Ita, 1.5) drew Konstantin Landa (Rus, 3).