Though he failed to defend his title, Grandmaster Pentyala Harikrishna had a positive start to the season, finishing second in the premier tournament of the Hastings International Chess Congress in the United Kingdom.

He trailed the winner, GM Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark, by half a point after a victory against GM Glenn Flear of England in the ninth and final round.

Nielsen stamped his authority on the category-12 tournament with an easy draw against GM Keith Arkell of England to emerge sole leader with 6 points.

Arkell shared the second place with Harikishna.

However, for top Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran, it turned out to be a disappointing start to the new year.

He drew the final round game against GM Vitaly Tseshkovsky to tie for sixth place.

It was quite surprising that none of the previous edition's three joint winners -- Harikrishna, Sasikiran and GM Alexei Barsov of Uzbekistan -- could make it to the top.

Barsov tied for the fourth spot along with the world's youngest GM, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, on 5 points.

England's GM Luke McShane lost to world women's championship finalist WGM Alexandra Kosteniuk.

McShane's and HariKrishna's were the only two decisive games in the final round.

Having lost the penultimate round to Nielsen, the 16-year-old Harikrishna came back firing on all cylinders against Flear.

Playing white, he opted for less trodden paths in the English opening and ensured a bloody battle by going for the isolated queen pawn very early.

Flear invited trouble despite being in an apparently harmless position, opting for a dubious plan in the middle game. Harikrishna cashed in on the opportunity to launch an offensive against the king with a pawn roll.

Having gained the upper hand, Harikrishna traded queens on the 17th move and forcefully won a pawn a few moves later. Looking desperately for counter play, Flear sacrificed a rook for bishop on his 26th turn, but lasted only six more moves.

Sasikiran failed to strike form yet again. Having won one, drawn six and lost one match in the tournament, the second highest rated player of the country after Vishwanathan Anand did try to give his best, but Tseshkovsky managed to wriggle out.

The opening was a Grunfeld defence where Sasikiran, white, managed to get a slight advantage.

Tseshkovsky sacrificed a pawn in the middle game and arrived at a pawn-less rook and pawns endgame that would have theoretically led to a draw.

Sasikiran, however, gave as much trouble as he could to the most senior competitor in the event, but in the end experience coupled with a thorough understanding of the ending prevailed and the 58-year-old Tseshkovsky draw after 104 moves.

Final Standings: 1 Nielsen 6; 2-3 Harikrishna, Arkell 5.5 each; 4-5 Barsov, Karjakin 5 each; 6-7 McShane, Sasikiran 4.5 each; 8 Flear 4; 9 Kosteniuk 3; 10 Tseshkovsky 2.