Former World Junior champion P Harikrishna made short work of British Grandmaster Nigel Short in the second round to jump into sole lead in the eighth Montreal International chess tournament here.

Playing with black, it was one of the easiest victories for Harikrishna as Short blundered a piece early in the middle game to go down in just 19 moves. Harikrishna was the only player with a perfect 2/2 score to lead the category-18 elite field.

Half-a-point behind are GM Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine, who was held to a draw by local hope Mark Bluvshtein, GM Gata Kamsky of United States, who scored an easy win over GM Miton Kamil of Poland, and GM Sergei Tiviakov of Holland, who added to the woes of Israeli Emil Sutovsky by handing him his second successive defeat.

Results (Round two): Nigel Short (Eng) lt to P Harikrishna (Ind, 2); P Charbonneau (Can, 0.5) drew Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 1); Pavel E (Ukr, 1.5) drew Mark B (Can, 1); Emil Sutovsky (Isr, 0) lt to Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 1.5); Gata Kamsky (US, 1.5) bt Miton Kamil (Pol, 1).