Grandmaster P Harikrishna suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Grigoriy Oparin of Russia in the seventh round of Gibraltar Masters on Tuesday. After a sedate start with two draws and a fine comeback, Harikrishna was off-form in the seventh round and lost two pawns before Oparin capped his performance with a queen sacrifice.
Harikrishna remained on 4.5 points after the debacle and now needs three victories in the last three rounds in order to have some standing in this richest open tournament of the world.
Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta continued with his impressive performance and drew with David Navara of Czech Republic.
Following a draw with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the previous round, this was another good result by Gupta who inched himself up to five points out of a possible seven.
Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura of United States was also held to a draw by Mikahil Antipov of Russia and English Grandmaster David Howell caught up with him in the lead on six points by disposing off Ivan Saric of Serbia.
As many as eight players share the third spot on 5.5 points apiece and Gupta, Sandipan Chanda, SL Narayanan and worlds youngest International Master R Praggnanandhaa are in joint 11th spot with five points each.
Another young player Prithu Gupta almost made his final International Master norm with another fine result against a Grandmaster. The Delhi-lad drew with Federico Perez Ponsa to reach 4.5 points. As he has played very high opposition here, Gupta is also in contention for a Grandmaster norm.
