Continuing with his sequence of draws, Viswanathan Anand shook hands with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov after 32 moves in the sixth round of Norway chess tournament here on Sunday.
But the talking point of the day was Wesley So’s first-ever victory over World champion Magnus Carlsen in the classical time format. The result ended the Norwegian’s 37-game unbeaten streak this year.
The 44-move defeat, on the eve of the second rest day, also sliced Carlsen’s lead to half a point and threw open the title-race.
In the exchange variation of Slav Defence, Carlsen miscalculated in the middle-game and lost a pawn on the 25th move. So, playing white, slowly gained control with an advanced pawn structure that left the black’s castled king with limited options.
Though Carlsen managed to win back the pawn, So stayed in control. Soon thereafter, Carlsen erred in judgement with a pawn-move on the queenside and lost a pawn. A move later, the top seed gave up.
Sixth round results: Viswanathan Anand (2.5/5) drew with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 2.5/6), Wesley So (USA, 3/5) bt Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 3.5/6), Levon Aronian (Arm, 3/6) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2.5/5), Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2.5/5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 2/5), Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 2.5/5) bye.
Seventh round pairings: Lagrave-Anand, Karjakin-Aronian, Caruana-Nakamura, Mamedyarov-So, Carlsen bye .
