Anand begins well

Viswanathan Anand made a winning start in the Isle of Man chess tournament, beating USA’s Marc Esserman in 46 moves here on Saturday.

In a formidable field of 160 players, including 30 Indians, the top eight players were made to randomly pick their first-round rivals that left second seed Vladimir Kramnik facing third seed Fabiano Caruana.

As it turned out, Caruana joined top seed Magnus Carlsen and Anand among 57 first-round winners. Some of the leading names are taking part in this event to boost their ratings to be eligible to make the field for next year’s Candidates tournament.

Leading first round results (Indians unless stated): Viswanathan Anand bt Marc Esserman; Neelotpal Das lost to Hikaru Nakamura (USA); B. Adhiban drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr); Aravindh Chithambaram lost to Pons Francisco Vallejo (Esp); Vidit Gujrathi drew with Rasmus Svane (Ger); Sergie Movsesian (Arm) drew with Harsha Bharathakoti; Varuzhan Akobian (USA) drew with Nihal Sarin; S.P. Sethuraman bt Alexander Dongchenko (Ger); Yuliya Shvayger (Isr) lost to Swapnil Dhopade; D. Harika bt Akito Oyama (Eng); P. Magesh Chandran bt Johannes Paul (Ger); Dietmar Kolbus (Ger) lost to R. Praggnanandhaa.