Anand goes down to Svidler in opening round of Legends of Chess tourney - Hindustan Times
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Anand goes down to Svidler in opening round of Legends of Chess tourney

Hindustan Times, Mumbai | By
Jul 22, 2020 11:55 AM IST

Anand missed some good chances and then blundered to lose the fourth game with black pieces. The match ended 2.5-1.5 Svidler’s favour.

Viswanathan Anand got off to a poor start in the Legends of Chess series on the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour as he lost to Russia’s Peter Svidler in their four-game rapid chess match on Tuesday night. Playing his first match in the preliminary round of the 10-player field comprising five current stars and equal number of veterans playing from their home on Chess24 platform, Anand missed some good chances and then blundered to lose the fourth game with black pieces. The match ended 2.5-1.5 Svidler’s favour.

Viswanathan Anand of India(Getty Images)
Viswanathan Anand of India(Getty Images)

Each match-up in the preliminary round contains four games in which each player has 15 minutes to finish with 10 seconds added to their clock after every move. In case the scores are tied after four games, the winner will be decided via an Armageddon game in which the player with white gets five minutes to four of his opponent but is obliged to win. A win in regulation games gets three points, winning in Armageddon fetches two points and loss one. Four players after the round-robin preliminary round will qualify for the semi-finals in the series with a total prize fund of $1 million.

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Anand had Svilder have played numerous times and Anand has had good times against his Russian rival but things did not go in his four this time. The first three games of the Anand-Svidler match-up ended in draws. Both played safe and accurately in the first game in which Anand had white pieces. Svidler had a good opportunity to win in the second game but Aannd defended well and did not allow him to capitalize on his chances. After the third game too ended in a draw, Anand got into a strong position with black pieces in the fourth game but just when it looked that he was cruising towards victory, the 50-year-old Indian Grandmaster from Chennai blundered on the 35th turn and that helped Svidler turn the table on him.

In other match-ups, World No 1 Magnus Carlsen outwitted Dutchman Anish Giri, with whom he has had a running Twitter battle, winning the second and fourth games for a 3-1 verdict. Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi defeated compatriot Vladimir Kramnik in an Armageddon game after the two ended 2-2 in four games after trading a win each and two draws while Hungarian Peter Leko overcame veteran Vassily Ivanchuk in another Armageddon after the 51-year-old Ukranian had won the fourth game to tie their match-up 2-2. Belarusia-born Israeli Grandmaster Boris Gelfand, at 52 the oldest player in the field who had lost to Anand in the 2012 World Championships final in Moscow, surprised everyone by defeating world No 3 Ding Liren of China 3-1, winning the second and fourth games with black pieces.

Thus at the end of the first round, Carlsen, Gelfand and Svidler were at the top with three points each; Leko and Nepomniachtchi have two each; Kramnik and Ivanchuk have one point each while Anand, Giri and Liren are yet to open their account.

The second round will go on till July 29 and the semi-finals will be played after a day’s rest on August 1and 2 followed by the final from August 3-5.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    B Shrikant anchors the Mumbai sports desk. A journalist for more than two decades, he covers hockey, chess, athletics, basketball and volleyball.

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