Grandmaster P Harikrishna suffered defeat at the hands of Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine and lost his joint lead after the fourth round of Montreal International chess tournament here.
After making a fine start with two victories and a draw in the first three rounds, the fourth round turned out to be a bad one for Harikrishna, especially as the Indian got into trouble early in the middlegame and never recovered.
As a result of his fine effort, Eljanov took the joint lead along with GM Gata Kamsky of the United States of America and top-seeded Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine who scored his second successive victory in the event at the expense of an out-of-form Nigel Short. This was Short’s fourth loss in as many games.
Results (fourth round): Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 3) bt P Harikrishna (Ind, 2.5); Gata Kamsky (USA, 3) bt Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 2.5); Nigel Short (Eng, 0) lt to Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 3); Mark Bluvshtein (Can, 2.5) drew with Kamil Miton (Pol, 2); Pascal Charbonneau (Can, 0.5) lt to Emil Sutovsky (Isr, 1).