Crimea (Ukraine): Grandmaster P. Harikrishna failed to keep his good form that he showed in the sixth round and suffered a loss at the hands of tournament leader GM Sergey Rublevsky at Aerosvit International Grandmasters chess tournament here on Sunday.

Rublevsky, in brilliant form, recorded his fifth consecutive victory in the seventh round, a rare feat in a tournament of this calibre.

Rublevsky played his favourite variation, 3.Bb5+ against the Sicilian defence. And Hari decided to play a closed set up and the position resembled the Spanish opening after Rublevsky closed the centre by pushing his queen pawn to d5.

The Russian GM opened the queen rook file and Harikrishna was forced into a passive position as his opponent’s rook moved to the seventh rank. Rublevsky sacrificed his queen on the 21st move to maintain his rook in an attacking position.

The marauding rook smashed Hari’s defences and the Indian GM threw in the towel after 28 moves..

The loss once again pushed Harikrishna to the last place. With this brilliant victory, Rublevsky increased his lead to a full point and now tops the standings with 5.5 points. (PTI)