Harikrishna enters top 20 in world rankings with a win over Wei Yi
On 20th of August, Harikrishna played at the 12th round of the Chinese League 2019 for his team China Mobil Shanghai. He played on the top board and faced one of the China's finest players Wei Yi from team Jiangsu. Recently Surya Ganguly had got the better of Wei Yi right out of the opening and had won his game in 16 moves. Hari scored quite a contrasting win where he ground down his opponent with slow and methodical play. There is definitely a lot to be learnt from the Indian no.2's play. IM Sagar Shah brings you the analysis of this game. Hari also gained 4.8 Elo points, taking his live rating to 2743 entering the top 20 in the world once again!
Harikrishna scored an emphatic win in the 12th round of the Chinese League 2019 for his team China Mobil Shanghai on board one against Wei Yi. This game has special significance as I am in Chens-Sur-Leman with six talented youngsters of Indian chess for the Kramnik training camp, and 20th of August being a rest day we could analyze the endgame in some detail. Also the fact that we were seeing a lot Kramnik's brilliant endgame grinds from equal/drawish endgames, helped us appreciate Harikrishna's win even more.
Let's have a look at some of the most important positions of the game:
Harikrishna vs Wei Yi, Chinese League, Round 12
A similar endgame was once won by Anatoly Karpov against Judit Polgar. This game was pointed out by Leon Mendonca in the analysis:
If you would like to improve your handling of the rook versus minor piece endgame then you should go for Karsten Mueller's Endgame 9: