Zurich: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand celebrated the Indian World Cup victory with a crushing win against Levon Aronian of Armenia in the second round of Zurich Chess Challenge, here. Under tremendous pressure to perform like the Indian cricket team, Anand delivered the goods thanks to a remarkable piece of homework and gave no chance to Aronian who had beaten the Indian ace just a few days back during the Grenke Chess Classic.
The victory helped Anand to find himself in joint lead alongside Hikaru Nakamura of United States who played out a draw with Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. In the other game of the day, Italian Fabiano Caruana opened his account, drawing with Sergey Karjakin of Russia.
With just three rounds in the Classical format remaining, Anand and Nakamura have three points apiece while Kramnik and Karjakin follow the two leaders a full point behind. Aronian and Caruana are on one point and in desperate need to do some catch-up act.
The tournament is played under a unique format that clubs the rapid and Classical format together. More points are given in Classical format wherein each win counts for two points whereas in rapid every win is worth one point each. The rapid section will be played on the last day of the tournament.
After an easy draw in the opener against Kramnik, Anand played his second successive white and used an improvement over his game against Magnus Carlsen of Norway during the last world championship match. The deviation from the earlier game was uncorked on the 12th move, and just a few moves later Anand sacrificed a Bishop to march his central passed pawn to the seventh rank. Aronian sank in deep thought during the proceedings and spent about an hour from move 19-21 but still could not find the right path to safety.
Anand knew the position inside out and it took him little time to seize the initiative. Aronian decided to give the piece back to ease some tension but in only resulted in a hasty end to the game as Anand won another piece. The game lasted just 28 moves and was the first to end in the day.
Kramnik drew with Nakamura out of a Reti opening as white. Getting a small advantage in the middle game, Kramnik pushed for more but Nakamura was up to the task in defense and has now come out well with his first two black games in the tournament. The game was drawn in a level rook endgame on move 40.
Caruana and Karjakin played the longest game of the day out of an Anti-Berlin that is slowly becoming the most popular opening in elite circles. Playing black Caruana decided against castling and pushed his king side pawns to create some weaknesses. Karjakin’s counter play was decent as the players arrived at a queen and minor piece endgame after the dust subsided and the peace was signed on move 41.
Results round 2: V Anand (Ind, 3) beat Levon Aronian (Arm, 2); Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 2) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 1); Vladmir Kramnik (Rus, 2) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 3).
