Nakamura leads, Anand 4th

Kolkata, November 10 

Hikaru Nakamura of the US recorded three successive wins to take the lead along with Armenian Levon Aronian on the penultimate day of the Tata Steel Chess India on Saturday.

World rapid champion Viswanathan Anand drew his sixth straight game of the tournament to stay undefeated. Anand is placed fourth with three points. Playing each other for the first time on Indian soil, Anand and Pentala Harikrishna had an interesting draw that saw no player taking extra risks. 

With three rounds to go on the final day of the rapid chess event, Nakamura and Aronian lead the table with 4.5 points apiece from a maximum six points. Indian No. 2 Harikrishna is one point adrift. He drew American Wesley So with the white pieces in Round 6 to slip to the third place. Anand looked promising with the black pieces but Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan had a strong initiative to eke out a draw. Surya Shekhar Ganguly had a poor outing as he managed to score only 0.5/3 and lost to Aronian in his last game of the day with the white pieces.

Reigning World Cup champion Aronian looked in trouble to start off with but the Armenian star said it was his strategy to deceive Ganguly. — PTI

Harika plays out second draw

Khanty Mansiysk (Russia): Grandmaster D Harika settled for a second straight draw with former champion Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia to set up a tie-breaker against the same opponent in the third round of the World Women’s Chess Championship. After the first game ended in a draw, Harika, with the black pieces, employed the French defence in the second, and Kosteniuk did not have many answers. While in the first game, Harika had fought for a long time to find an advantage, in the second as black, she was happy to call it a draw in just 29 moves. PTI