A much-needed win eluded former World Junior champion P Harikrishna in the final round game against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and the Indian had to be content with the third-place finish at the Montreal International Chess tournament here.
Harikrishna needed a full point to finish a clear first in the event but he could do little against Ivanchuk’s fine technique and lost due to his slightly worse position in the middle game.
The rapid rise of the Ukrainian in the past few months has seen his rating escalating to a whopping ELO 2762 and with further gains, he is likely to be among the FIDE top three.
The second place went to Sergei Tiviakov of Holland who played out a draw with local talent Pascal Charbonneau. Tiviakov ended with 6 points in all, a half point clear of Harikrishna who finished sole third.
Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine finished on a positive note defeating Gata Kamsky of United States in his final round duel. The Ukrainian who had beaten Harikrishna in an earlier round was a bit subdued in the second half but his final round victory paved way for him to finish joint fourth along side Kamsky.
Harikrishna played the black side of a Petroff defense but could not really equalise against Ivanchuk who went for one of the topical variations. The Indian came under problems on the queen side in the middle game with little counter play and ended up losing a pawn. Seeing no way out, Harikrishna resigned on his 41st turn.
After an indifferent start that fetched him as many as three zeros, Emil Sutovsky finally found his touch to finish clear 6th on 4.5 points and is going to salvage his ELO rating from the event.
Results (final round): Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 7) bt P Harikrishna (Ind, 5.5); Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 6) drew with Pascal Charbonneau (Can, 3); Gata Kamsky (Usa, 5) lt to Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 5); Emil Sutovsky (Isr, 4.5) bt Kamil Miton (Pol, 3.5); Nigel Short (Eng, 2) lt to Mark Bluvshtein (Can, 3.5).