Calcutta Telegraph, India
April 27 2004

Surya Sekhar loses to 13-year-old Norwegian

Dubai: Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran slipped to joint second place
yet again after drawing with GM Artashes Minasian of Armenia in the
seventh round of Dubai international chess championship on Monday.

GM Pavel Eljanov of the Ukraine shot into sole lead following a
hard-fought victory over GM Alexei Federov of Belarus.

Surya Sekhar Ganguly lost to 13-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway. IM
D.V. Prasad also ended up on the losing side against Goran Dizdar of
Croatia. Eljanov, on six points, is closely followed by top seeded
Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania, Shakhriyaz Mamedyarov of
Azerbaijan, Moldova’s Viorel Iordachescu, Alexander Goloshchapov of
Ukraine, Carlsen, Minasian, Sasikiran and P. Harikrishna. They have
5.5 points each.

With just two rounds remaining, a pack of eight players share the
third spot with five points apiece.

The Indian IM norm aspirants suffered a setback in their quest as
Parimarjan Negi and Manthan Chokshi went down fighting against
Russian GM Alexey Kuzmin and Armenian GM Karen Asrian, respectively.
P. Harikrishna was in his elements in beating GM Zahar Efimenko of
Ukraine from the white side of a King’s Indian defence.

In the late middle game, the Ukrainian fell prey to a well-disguised
pawn sacrifice by the Indian and found himself a pawn less. Not
giving any chances thereafter, Harikrishna traded queens at the
opportune juncture and romped home in 47 moves. Sasikiran maintained
a minuscule advantage for the major part of the game against Minasian
but could not really convert that with his white pieces as his
opponent posted stiff resistance.

The middle game arising from a Torre attack was on expected lines and
pieces got exchanged at regular intervals leaving Sasikiran with a
better-placed knight against bishop. However as it turned out in the
end, black had just about sufficient replies to maintain the balance.
The draw was agreed to in 49 moves.

The big winner of the day was Carlsen who looks set to become the
youngest GM after his spectacular victory over Surya Sekhar who
played the black side of a Trompowski opening.

Women GM Aarthie Ramaswamy lost to Shanava Konstantine while her
husband GM R.B. Ramesh was held to a draw by Nadera Barlo.

The other Indians in the fray had good results with Abhijeet Gupta,
IMs Deepan Chakravarthy and Rahul Shetty scoring over A.R. Saleh
Jasiom, Asylguzhin Radik and Janahi Zeyaad, respectively.