Finally, Viswanathan Anand tasted victory after Peter Leko walked into a checkmating net in the first game of the fourth round in the chess24 Legends of Chess on Saturday.
A day after running out of time in a superior position in the tie-breaking Armageddon game to Anish Giri, Anand was lucky to win after both players committed a series of mistakes in the closing moments of the game.
In this up-and-down game, on the 55th move, Leko was a couple of moves away from forcing a checkmate. But he blundered, allowed Anand a checkmate-in-three and resigned on the 57th move.
At the same time, Magnus Carlsen’s one-move blunder leading to an inevitable checkmate left the chess world stunned after he came very close to beating Vassily Ivanchuk.
Fifth-round results: Game One: Viswanathan Anand bt Peter Leko (Hun); Magnus Carlsen (Nor) lost to Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus) drew with Peter Svidler (Rus); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) lost to Ding Liren (Chn); Anish Giri (Ned) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr).
Fourth round: Giri bt Anand 3-2; Carlsen bt Gelfand 3-0; Kramnik bt Leko 2.5-1.5; Nepomniachtchi bt Ivanchuk 2.5-1.5; Liren bt Svidler 2.5-1.5 .
