Producing his vintage best, Viswanathan Anand gave a 42-move master-class to World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana and moved into joint lead with Anish Giri after three rounds of Tata Steel chess tournament here on Monday.
A second successive victory with white pieces raised Anand’s tally to 2.5 points and matched Giri’s tally after the overnight leader drew with Peter Svidler.
Facing Caruana’s Petroff Defence, Anand was happy to trade a rook for the knight-pair by the 21st move. In this eventful game, Anand marshalled his resources well to bring pressure on the castled black king. The advantage shifted decisively in Anand’s favour after a kingside pawn-push by Caruana on the 36th turn. Six moves later, a
hapless Caruana gave up when faced with the prospect of an inevitable checkmate.
B. Adhiban, however, crashed to his second defeat in as many days after facing England’s Gawain Jones, the lowest rated player in the field. All other games ended in draws.
In the Challenger section, top seed Vidit Gujrathi defeated second seeded Egyptian Amin Baseem in 59 moves in a key encounter to share the lead with Anton Korobov at 2.5 points.
D. Harika drew for the third straight round after playing with white pieces against local Erwin L’Ami.
Third-round results (Indians unless stated):
Masters : Viswanathan Anand (2.5) bt Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 1); Gawain
Jones (Eng, 2) bt B. Adhiban (0.5); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2) drew with
Wei Yi (Chn, 1); Wesley So (USA, 1.5) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus,
1.5); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5);
Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1.5) drew with Hou Yifan (Chn, 0.5); Shakhriyar
Mamedyarov (Aze, 2) drew with Maxim Matlakov (Rus, 1).
Challengers : Amin Baseem (Egy, 1) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (2.5); D.
Harika (1.5) drew with Erwin L’Ami (Ned, 1.5); Aryan Tari (Nor,) drew
with Dmitry Gordievsky (Rus, 2); Michal Krasenkow (Pol, 1) drew with
Lucas van Foreest (Ned, 1.5); Jorden van Foreest (Ned,) lost to
Matthias Bluebaum (Ger,); Anton Korobov (Ukr, 2.5) bt Benjamin Bok
(Ned, 1).
