Unoticed upset

Cutting a grandmaster down to size
Up-and-coming Ottawa chess players managed to pull off memorable wins against superstar Alexei Shirov.

Don Butler reports.
The Ottawa Citizen
February 14, 2010

When 12-year-old Pranav Sharma knocked off Latvian chess superstar Alexei Shirov in Ottawa last Thursday — in just 16 moves, no less — he celebrated by gorging on New York Fries, one of his favourite treats.

But when 16-year-old Karoly Szalay did the same thing, his celebration, if you can call it that, was much more muted.

“I went home and was really tired and went to sleep,” Karoly, a Grade 11 student at Lisgar Collegiate, said Saturday.

The two were the only ones to defeat Shirov during the contest, which saw the Latvian grandmaster take on 36 of Ottawa’s best chess players simultaneously. Players paid a fee to participate in the “simul” match.

While both young players were delighted by their success against one of the world’s top players, their response reflects the difference in their ages and chess accomplishments.

Karoly is the Canadian under-16 champion. Last year, he defeated older players to capture the Ottawa Chess Club championship. He started playing chess about a decade ago and has already achieved master status in Canada.

Here is the full article.