Pendyala Harikrishna played out an easy draw with former World Championship finalist and second seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine to stay afloat in the Aerosvit International Grandmasters chess tournament in Ukraine on Sunday.

After his first round draw with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania this turned out to be another good result for Harikrishna in the category-18 round robin tournament between 12 players.

The Indian is seeded 8th in this strong tournament and has so far produced fine flair here.

The second day of the event was marred by draws as not a single game ended decisively. As a result the status quo was maintained and three first round winners, Viktor Bologan of Moldova, Ukrainian Andrei Volokitin and twice world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan remained atop the tables with 1.5 points apiece.

Harikrishna retained his joint fourth spot on one point from his two games and he is now in the company of Alexei Shirov of Spain, Alexander Grischuk of Russia [Images], Ukrainians Ivanchuk and Alexander Areshchenko and Nisipeanu who all have the same score.

Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, his compatriot and former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov and Sergei Rublevsky of Russia are still languishing at the bottom of the standing list with just half a point so far. 10 rounds still remain in one of the strongest tournament this year.

Harikrishna's opening preparation was tested against Ivanchuk who played black and equalized comfortably in the Petroff Defence employed by the Indian.

It was a topical variation in the Petroff Defence that gave Ivanchuk an easy game right from the beginning after he went for a set up he had earlier employed against Peter Leko of Hungary during the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament held earlier this year.

Harikrishna was quick to realize that the opening did not go too well for him and took the easier route leading to a balanced heavy pieces endgame after all minor pieces changed hands early in the middle game.

After just 24 moves the players signed truce.

Even as there was no decisive result, the day still produced some high quality chess and Ruslan Ponomariov was denied a full point despite doing extremely well in the middle game against Bologan.

The opening featured routine maneuvers of a Bayonet attack in the King's Indian defence and Ponomariov sacrificed a pawn early to open queen side lines for his pieces to operate.

Bologan came under huge pressure as Ponomariov made consistent progress and at one point it became imminent that the Ukrainian will cruise home.

However Ponomariov, who suffered an agonizing first round loss against Volokitin, failed to get the momentum ticking and went on an exchanging spree that left Bologan off the hook.

The Moldovan survived by the skin of his teeth and settled for a draw after 78 moves.

Also surviving some anxious moments was Volokitin who celebrated his 20th birthday.

Playing black against Nisipeanu, Volokitin faced the Alapin variation in the Sicilian Defence and got in to some difficulties after his king got struck in the center.

Later in the game, Nisipeanu could not find promising continuations and had to split the point after 33 moves.

In other games of the day, Mamedyarov took a draw with Shirov in a Semi-Slav Defence game where the former played white; Grischuk achieved the same result with the favourable colour against Areshchenko in the shortest game of the day while Karjakin failed to impress a resolute Sergey Rublevsky.

Results, round 2: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 1.5) drew with Alexei Shirov (Esp, 1); Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Rom, 1) drew with Andrei Volokitin (Ukr, 1.5); Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 1) drew with Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 1); P Harikrishna (Ind, 1) drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 1); Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr, 0.5) drew with Viktor Bologan (Mda, 1.5); Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 0.5) drew with Sergei Rublevsky (Rus, 0.5);

The moves:

P Harikrishna v/s Vassily Ivanchuk: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Bd6 7. O-O O-O 8. c4 c6 9. Qc2 Na6 10. a3 Bg4 11. Ne5 Bf5 12. Be3 Nac5 13. dxc5 Bxe5 14. Nc3 d4 15. Bxe4 Bxe4 16. Qxe4 Re8 17. Bf4 Bxf4 18. Qxf4 dxc3 19. bxc3 Qa5 20. Rfd1 Re7 21. Qd4 Rae8 22. h3 Re4 23. Qd7 R4e7 24. Qd4 draw agreed.

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