Harikrishna's victory guides Elara to Bronze

SOCHI (Russia): Grandmaster P Harikrishna struck when it mattered most to guide his team 'Elara' to win Bronze medal in the premier league of Russian Chess Club team championship that concluded here.

Harikrishna came with a stupendous performance in the final round game against Grandmaster Baadur Jobava of Georgia who represented Ladya Kazan, a club earlier opted for by now-retired Garry Kasparov of Russia.

In a scintillating show, Harikrishna displayed fantastic piece play even when he was left with no pawns against Jobava in the crunch game.

The end was picturesque as Hari's pieces caught Jobava's king on the edge of the board to force resignation. The victory came at a time when Elara was on the brink of defeat against Kazan and managed to draw the important final round match 3-3 following Harikrishna's victory.

Harikrishna said he was delighted with his performance.

"I drew seven and won two games here and gain in rating after my bad performance in Aeroflot open in February is something good," Harikrishna said.

Besides the last round triumph, Harikrishna also emerged the best player for his team scoring 5.5 points out of a possible 9.

Facing an all Grandmaster opposition in this strong event, Harikrishna is expected to gain 8 ELO rating points from the event.

Playing on the third board, Hari performed better than stalwarts like Boris Gelfand of Israel on top board and Alexander Khalifman of Russia.

Tomsk-400 won the gold medal winning all the nine matches in this 10-teams all-play-all event while the silver went to Ural.

Tomsk was a run away winner leading from day one and did not meet any competition. Since the winner were to be decided by Match points, Tomsk-400 made sure of winning each match and ended with 18 points in all.

Ural finished second on 14 points while Elara finished with 12 points in all losing only to Tomsk-400.

Final team results:
1. Tomsk-400 18 pts
2. Ural 14 pts
3. Elara 12 pts
4. Economist-SGSEU-1 11 pts
5. Youth of Moscow  10 pts
6. TPS Saransk 9 pts
7. Shatar 7 pts
 8. Ladya Kazan 5 pts.
 9. Southern Ural 5 pts
10. Polytechnik Nizhny Tagil 1 pt.