Grandmaster P Harikrishna scored a thumping victory over Andorran GM Oscar De La Vira Aguado to emerge as joint leader after the second round of the 15th Ciudad De Pamplona International Chess tournament in Pamplona, Spain.

After an exciting draw with Dutch GM Jan Timman in the first round, Harikrishna had his task cut out as black against Aguado and he performed in exemplary fashion to win in just 27 moves.

The second day of the 8-player Category-16 round-robin event also provided more sparks than the first round, since as many as three out of four games ended decisively compared to only one in the previous round.

Ending up as winners, were former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine who defeated HB global chess challenge champion Izoria Zviad of Georgia and Laurent Fressinet of France [Images] who defeated Timman.

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The other game of the day was drawn after Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria failed to press home his advantage against Sergei Tivakov of Holland.

In view of these results, Harikrishna emerged as joint leader along with Cheparinov, Fressinet and Ponomariov on 1.5 points each.

Tiviakov was on fifth spot on one point while Zviad and Timman had half a point apiece. For Aguado, it was second loss in as many games with the Andorran yet to open his account.

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