Internet Desk: Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand was defeated by Rusian chess Grand Master Vladimir Kramnik in the second round of Altibox Norway chess tournament.
Unfortunately for the Indian superstar, who was initially playing a well thought-out game, his own miscalculation led him to lose. In the second round too, Kramnik beat Anand on 1.5 points.
Hikaru Nakamura of United States on 1.5 poins drew with Levon Aronian of Armenia.
The rivalry between two most legendary chess players of modern times began in 1989 when Anand and Kramnik played for the very first time.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen, in another game, played out an uneventful draw with Fabiano Caruana of United States.
Anish Giri of Holland, who fought for approximately six hours before conceding half a point to Sergey Karjakin of Russia, was rewarded with half a point in the end. With this, Giri and Anand are at the bottom of the table with 0.5/2.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France drew with World No. 2 Wesley So of United States.
With seven rounds still to go in the strongest tournament of the year, Vachier, Karjakin, Aronian, Wesley So, Caruana and Carlsen share the second spot on one point each having drawn both games while Anand and Giri share the ninth spot with half a point from two games.
Anand opened with the king pawn and Kramnik did not go for his favourite Berlin defense. This prompted Anand to go for an interesting pawn sacrifice that was accepted by the Russian. As the game progressed Anand won back the pawn and reached only a slightly difficult endgame.
It was only on the 34th move that white made the decisive mistake. Anand grabbed a pawn leaving black with a passed pawn. Kramnik won after 60 moves.
Nakamura was in troubles but bailed out with stiff resistance against Aronian. The American was playing white but felt the heat on the king side with some deft manoeuvres by Aronian.
The middle game was intense and Nakamura had to be on his toes to watch out one threat after another. However some timely exchanges liquidated to a level endgame.
Anish Giri was close to romping home with a win but missed out as Karjakin lived up to his billing of ‘master of defense’.
Caruana did not press much with white against Carlsen.
Results round 2: V Anand (Ind, 0.5) lost to Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1.5); Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 1.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 1); Anish Giri (Ned, 0.5) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 1); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 1) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1); Wesley So (Usa, 1) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1).