International Master (2000); Grandmaster (2001); World U10 Champion (1996); Asian U14 Champion (1999 and 2000); World Junior Champion (2004), Asian Champion (2011).
Preamble
Harikrishna hails from Guntur in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He was the youngest Indian to become an IM and also the youngest to become a GM, the latter at the age of 15 years 3 months and 5 days, although these records have been superseded by Parimarjan Negi. He won his three GM norms at the 2000 Olympiad, Corus GM B in 2001 and the 2001 Asian Continental Championship.
Championships
<Youth - National> Harikrishna won numerous national youth championships in India from a very early age, including the U8 in 1993, the U10 in 1996, U12 in 1996 and 1998, U14 in 1999, U15 in 1998, and the U18 in 1998. He also won the National U12 rapid championships in 1996 and 1997, and the National U14 rapid championship in 1998.
<Youth – International> His main youth trophy was winning the World U10 Championship in 1996.Other youth trophies on the larger continental and world stage include runner-up at the World U12 rapid in 1996, and winner of the Asian U14 Championships in 1999 and 2000. He placed =2nd behind Sasikiran at the Asian U18 Championship in 2002 and 3rd behind Ferenc Berkes and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the World U18 Championship held in the same year.
<Junior> He was runner up with 8/11 on tiebreak behind Tejas Bakre in the Asian Junior Championship in 2000, and runner up in the 2001 version of the event behind the outright winner Thanh Son Nguyen, scoring 7.5/11. At the 2002 World Junior Championship, he was =5th, and in 2003 he placed =7th. Harikrishna finally broke through in 2004 when he became the World Junior Champion, the first Indian to do so since Anand in 1987. This was also the 4th time a player has won the World Junior Championship at home for their country. In August 2006 in Mainz, "Hari" beat Arkadij Naiditsch by 4½–3½ in the final to become Chess960 World Junior Champion.
<National - India> He placed 5th at the National 'A' Championship in Mumbai in 2000; was 2nd behind Sasikiran at the same editions of that event in Nagpur in 2002 and in Mumbai in 2003; and 3rd in 2004, half a point behind behind Sandipan Chanda and Surya Shekhar Ganguly with 17/23.
<National - Great Britain> Harikrishna competed in the British Chess Championship in 2003 in Edinburgh, Scotland, placing 2nd behind Abhijit Kunte and winning the British U21 Championship.
<Continental> He came 3rd at the Asian Championship in 1998 and =7th (10th on tiebreak) at the 2001 Asian Championship where he not only gained his 3rd GM norm, but qualified for the 2001 World Championship Knockout Tournament. In May 2011 he won the 10th Asian Individual Championship (2011) with 6.5/9 on tiebreak ahead of Yangyi Yu and Truong Son Nguyen.
<World> Qualifying through the Asian Continental Championship 2001, Harikrishna encountered Alexander Beliavsky in the first round of the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2001/02), but lost the mini-match by 1.5-0.5. He qualified for the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) by placing 2nd (behind Ganguly) at the Asian Zonal 3.1b held in 2003 in Bangladesh; faring better by defeating Jun Xu in the first round and holding Vasyl Ivanchuk to a draw in the standard games of the second round. However, he lost in the rapid game tiebreakers. He was seeded into the World Cup (2005), this time going an extra round, beating Shaoteng Yu and Giovanni Vescovi in the first two rounds before losing to Aleksey Dreev in the 3rd round tiebreaker. At the subsequent World Cup (2007), he was eliminated in the first round by Jun Zhao. He qualified for the World Cup (2011) through the 2011 Asian Continental championship and defeated Maxim Rodshtein in the first round but lost to Dmitry Jakovenko in the second round.
He qualified as a rating reserve for the World Cup (2015) as neither Magnus Carlsen nor Anand played in that event. In the first round, he defeated Australian IM Max Illingworth to progress to the second round where he unexpectedly lost to compatriot Sethuraman P Sethuraman and exited the tournament.
Standard Tournaments
Harikrishna has an impressive array of victories and other leader board results in tournaments at home and abroad.
<1999>
• 1st at the All-India Open, held in Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala;
• 1st at the Tal Tournament, held in Kozhikode, also in Kerala;
• 3rd at the International Tournament held in Aurangabad, Maharasthra (India).
<2001>
• Harikrishna scored his 2nd GM norm at the Corus tournament GM B in Wijk aan Zee, where he drew with the winner Teimour Radjabov, and scored 6.5/11 for 5th place;
• At the age of 15, he won the Commonwealth Championship held in London;
• 1st at the Ron Banwell MSO Masters Tournament, also held in London;
• =3rd at the AICF Golden Jubilee Tournament held in Calicut, half a point behind Tahir Vakhidov and Sasikiran;
<2002>
• =1st at Hastings in 2001-02 event, and 2nd in the Hastings (2002/03).
<2003>
• =1st (2nd on tiebreak) at the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival;
• 1st in the U18 group at the Commonwealth championship in Mumbai;
• 2nd behind Pavel Kotsur at the Sharjah International Chess Festival in the United Arab Emirates.
<2004>
• 1st amongst the Juniors competing at the Commonwealth Championship in Mumbai;
• 3rd at the Gibraltar Masters (2004) behind Nigel Short and Ganguly;
• 2nd behind Mamedyarov at the Dubai Open (2004)
• 2nd at the Abu Dhabi International Tournament behind Dmitry Bocharov
• 3rd at the Category 16 Pune Super GM (2004) in Maharashtra in India behind Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.
<2005>
• =1st with Boris Gelfand (2nd on tiebreak) in the category 17 Bermuda International (2005)
• 1st at the Category 15 2nd Sanjin Hotel Cup (2005) and the Category 16 Crown Group of the 9th Essent Hoogeveen (2005) respectively;
• 2nd at the HB Global Chess Challenge (2005) in Minneapolis USA, behind Ildar Ibragimov
• =2nd behind Ruslan Ponomariov alongside Ivan Cheparinov at the Category 16 Pamplona International (2005).
<2006>
• =1st at the Reykjavik Open (2006) and
• 1st at the 4th Marx Gyorgy Memorial (2006) in Hungary.
<2007>
• 2nd at the Category 14 Carlos Torre Repetto Memorial knock out tournament where he lost to Vasyl Ivanchuk in tie-break;
• 3rd at the Category 17 Montreal International in Montreal, after Ivanchuk and Sergei Tiviakov
• =2nd at the Category 16 Reggio Emilia chess tournament behind Zoltan Almasi
• 1st at the category 14 5th Gyorgy Marx Memorial (2007).
<2008>
• 4th at the Category 15 Corus Group B (2008) behind Sergei Movsesian, Etienne Bacrot and Short;
• 1st at the Category 15 SPICE Cup (2008), USA.
<2009>
• 1st at the Category 10 7th International Festival Meurthe et Moselle-GM closed chess tournament held in Nancy, France.
<2010>
• 1st at the New York Open;
• =2nd at the 38th World Open (2010) held in King of Prussia, in Montgomery, Pennsylvania with 7/9 behind Viktor Laznicka.
<2011>
• =2nd at the Chicago Open, half a point behind Timur Gareyev
• =3rd at the 39th World Open (2011) in Philadelphia, USA, Michael Adams and Gata Kamsky.
<2012>
• Won the Tata Steel Group B (2012) outright with 9/13 (+6 -1 =6), qualifying him to participate in the A group in 2013;
• Won (on tiebreak) the huge 28th Cappelle-la-Grande (2012) with 7/9 and a TPR of 2783;
• =2nd (3rd on tiebreak) behind Dan Zoler at the Benasque International Open in Spain;
• scored 7.5/11 at the Biel International Festival (Masters), a half point behind the leaders Igor Kurnosov, Romain Edouard, and Movsesian.
<2013>
• 6.5/13 at the Category 20 Tata Steel Group A (2013) super tournament at Wijk aan Zee, finishing in the top half of the field, pushed him over 2700 for the first time;
• Won the 2013 Biel Masters tournament with 8.5/11;
• shortly afterwards, he scored a strong 7/9 at the Hogeschool Zeeland Chess Tournament 2013.
<2014>
Harikrishna started 2014 with an even score (+3 -3 =5) at the Category 20 Tata Steel Masters (2014), including victories over Leinier Dominguez Perez, Hikaru Nakamura and Arkadij Naiditsch. He followed up with 7/10 at Gibraltar Masters (2014) and =3rd with 5/10 at Biel (2014).
<2015>
He placed =3rd at Gibraltar Masters (2015), a point behind the winner Hikaru Nakamura and half a point behind the runner up David Howell. In June, he won the 10th Edmonton International (2015) by a point ahead of Hao Wang, Vasyl Ivanchuk and Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Soon afterwards he won the lucrative Isle of Man Masters (2015) on tiebreak from Fressinet and Sargissian.
Team Events
<Olympiads> Harikrishna has represented India at every Olympiad from 2000 until 2012, playing on either board 2 or board 3. He gained his first GM norm at the 2000 event.
<European Club Cup> He also played in the European Club Cup for the first time when he played for G-Team Novy Bor in the European Club Cup (2014), winning team silver and a possible board prize for board 3 when he scored 6/7.
<India> He played board 2 for India at the World Team Championship (2010), winning team bronze. He played top board for India at the 2011 World Team Championship and again at the World Team Championship (2015). He also played:
• board 3 for India at the 2003 Asian Teams Championship, winning team silver;
• board 1 in the Asian Teams Championship 2009, helping his team to a gold medal and winning individual bronze; and
• board 2 in the Asian Teams Championship 2012, winning team silver.
He also represented India at the Asian Games (Chess) in 2006 and 2010, helping his team to a gold medal and a bronze medal respectively, while scoring an individual silver medal in 2006. In 2009, he played board 1 for India at the Asian Indoor Games (Chess) winning team bronze.
<Leagues>
Harikrishna played for Baden Baden in the European Club Cup (ECC) in 2007, 2008 and 2013, winning team silver in 2008. He has played in the:
• Bundesliga since 2006, winning team gold with his team Baden Baden in 2007, 2008 and 2009. As of 2012, Harikrishna is playing first board for chess club Eppingen;
• Greek League team, winning gold and team bronze with his team Kavala in 2008 and 2013 respectively;
• Russian Premier League in 2007 and 2008, winning team bronze with team Elara in 2007;
• Spanish League since 2005, winning team gold in 2005, team silver with club Cuna de Dragones in 2006. He has played with C.A.Solway since 2007, winning team silver in 2012 and qualifying for the ECC;
• League of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2009 (winning team and individual gold with club Bosna);
• China League winning gold with team Shanghai in 2012;
• UK (4NCL) in 2005 and 2006;
• Hungarian League in 2015;
• Czech Extraliga 2013-14, 2014-15 2015-16 and the
• Turkish Super League, winning team gold with Istanbul Technical University SOCAR in 2014 and placing team 7th in 2015.
Other
Harikrishna is majoring in political science, sociology, and public administration at DR. B. R. Ambedkar Open University (Andhra Pradesh Open University) and has been employed at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. in Hyderabad since June 2010. He is married to Nadezda Pentala.
Ratings and Rankings
Harikrishna first made it into the top 100 in October 2004 when he was 18 years old and has remained in the top 100 since that time. He first surpassed a rating of 2700 in February 2013 and has remained rated above 2700 continuously since September 2013. He was also rated #2 Junior (U20) in the world for the first 9 months of 2006 during which period he was also ranked #25 in the world for the 6 months to September 2006.
His highest standard rating to date is 2763 as of 1 April 2016, when he was ranked #13 in the world, his highest ranking to date.
References and sources
Wikipedia article: Pendyala Harikrishna
Kibitzing
