World champion Viswanathan Anand missed his chances and drew with Dutch champion Anish Giri while P. Harikrishna held the higher-ranked Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the second round of the 75th edition of the Tata Steel chess tournament here.
The second round did not produce any decisive games even though all the games were fought hard. As a result, the lead positions remained unchanged and Harikrishna continued to sit at the top along with Russian Sergey Karjakin on 1.5 points from two games.
Anand remained in the pack of 10 players sharing the third spot with one point while former world women’s champion Yifan Hou of China and Giri remained at the bottom of the table with half-a-point in this Category-20 super tournament being played on a round-robin basis between 14 players.
No winning chances
Anand did get winning chances but they were not easy to convert. After his 37th move, the result of the game was clear and peace was signed after 46 moves.
Harikrishna came close to causing a big upset against Caruana. It was another closed Ruy Lopez in which the Indian played black and exerted pressure on the king side. Caruana was glued to his chair for a long time and his position improved only after Harikrishna’s mistake on the 34th move.
The Italian was back in the game and subsequent exchanges led to a drawn rook and pawns endgame.
The results (second round): Anish Giri (Ned, 0.5) drew with V. Anand (Ind, 1); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 1) drew with P. Harikrishna (Ind, 1.5); Erwin L’Ami (Ned, 1) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 1.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 1) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1); Wang Hao (Chn, 1) drew with Peter Leko (Hun, 1); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 1) drew with Ivan Sokolov (Ned, 1); Loek van Wely (Ned, 1) drew with Yifan Hou (Chn, 0.5).
