World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a quick draw with Hikaru Nakamura of United States while debutant P. Harikrishna beat local player Anish Giri in the first round of the ‘A’ group of Tata Steel chess tournament that got underway here.
Nakamura went for a surprise in the French defence as black, not giving much to the Indian ace and it was a fairly quick draw but Harikrishna fought on a drawn endgame for a long time and capitalised on some errors to score his first victory in his first game of the premier group.
Harikrishna qualified for the premier section and became the first Indian after Anand to play in a category-20 tournament. The qualification had happened last year when the Hyderabad-based player had won the ‘B’ group.
The results: First round: Aronian drew with van Wely, Carlsen drew with Caruana, P. Harikrishna bt Anish Giri, V. Anand drew with Nakamura, Sokolov drew with Hao, Leko drew with L’Ami, Karjakin bt Hou.
