Harika jumps five places, takes World No. 5 position

Riding on her winning streak in the last couple of months, Grand Master Harika Dronavalli has jumped five places from No. 10 to 5th position in the World Live Ranking today.
Harika, who recently won the Fide women's Grand Prix in Chengdu, is currently playing in the Chinese Chess League and is not showing any signs of slowing down. She recorded her third straight win today to help her team, Shandong, maintain pole position along with Team Shanghai.
Playing black against lower rated opponent, Du Yuxin, the Hyderabadi lass dominated all through and easily won the game.
"My opponent played a solid game but made some strategic mistakes. I used that to my advantage and outplayed her to gain the point," she said.

Team Shandong had a frutiful day today, picking up 3.5 points out of the 4 games held in this leg.
India's other Grand Master in fray in the elite tournament, P Harikrishna, drew his game against Xu Minghui of Team Zhejiang. Hari is representing Team Shanghai.

The Chinese Chess League is an annual elite tournament, comprising of 12 teams. All of China's top players and a number of foreign players were assembled in Jiaxing for this event.
The elite league is played from April to December, lasting 22 rounds in six 3-4 day sessions. The current leg ended on July 26.

Each match is played over five boards, with women playing on two of them. The next leg of this elite tournament is expected in September, later this year.