Indian Grandmaster Pentyala Harikrishna's six-match victory run was halted by top seed GM Nigel Short of England in the 8th round of the Gibtelecom Masters International Open Chess Congress at Gibraltar.
The loss proved quite costly for Harikrishna as he had to surrender the sole lead to Short who took his tally to 6.5 points from 8 games played so far.
Harikrishna now trails Short by half a point alongwith second seed Alexei Dreev of Russia and compatriot GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly who drew a keenly contested game with another Indian GM Abhijit Kunte.
With just two rounds remaining in this tournament, GM Sandipan Chanda and Kunte are in a pack of eight players with 5.5 points apiece and remain in contention for top honours.
Having played so well so far, Harikrishna finally fumbled badly against Short who virtually gave an endgame lesson to his younger opponent.
Playing white, Short opted for a closed variation of the Ruy Lopez and even though he could not have claimed an opening advantage, his position looked slightly superior as the middle game approached.
Till now in this event, Harikrishna was trying to win hard but in this round his desperation to equalise proved detrimental.
Short went for a much better looking endgame when Harikrishna presented him with an opportunity to triple his pawns on the queenside and after a not-so-routine exchange, the game drifted to a lost rook and pawns ending for the young Indian. It took Short 45 moves to wrap up the issue.
In another disappointing result for India, final GM norm aspirant Tejas Bakre lost to Dreev on the second board after putting up a brave front.
Bakre was aware that a draw will take him much nearer to his main aim in the event and he appeared to have done everything right till the late middle game when he had a level position on board.
Dreev was quite imaginative in working out ways to continue the battle and was suitable rewarded when Bakre lost a pawn on the queen side. The resulting knight endgame was child's play for the Russian.
Kunte drew with Ganguly but not before trying hard for a breakthrough. The queen-less middle game arising out of a Queen's Gambit Accepted favoured Kunte who played white. But Ganguly quickly neutralised white's slightly better pawn structure with methodical exchanges. The truce was signed after 69 moves.
Sandipan Chanda played well yet again to hold higher rated Vladimir Epishin of Russia in a Sicilian defence game.
Sandipan looked out for complexities in the middle game and lost a pawn as Epishin came up with a thoughtful plan. However, in the endgame, despite being a pawn less, the National Championship runners up managed to steer the game to a draw after 62 moves.
