India’s Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna had to dig deep into his defensive skills to pull off a draw against Yangyi Yu of China in the Shenzhen Longgang Chess Grandmaster Tournament here on Monday.
Playing white, the World No. 14 found himself in a fragile rook versus rook-bishop endgame. But he played out every move precisely to not allow Yu to convert his advantage into a victory.
“I must thank my friend who forced me to work on the rook versus rook-bishop game,” Harikrishna said, shortly after the draw.
The encounter lasted a mammoth 102 moves as Yu desperately tried to force an error out of Harikrishna. Harikrishna has 2 and a half points after five rounds and is fourth on the table. Yu who has drawn all his five games is also on the same number of points but is one place above the Indian.
Top seeded Anish Giri of The Netherlands and Liren Ding of China occupy the first two places, although they have just half a point more.
Tuesday is a rest day. The tournament will resume on Wednesday, with Harikrishna taking on Peter Svidler of Russia to begin the entire sequence of first round matches.