Press Trust of India
London, Dec 15: Five-time chess World Champion Viswanathan Anand won his maiden London Classic title here Monday after defeating British Grandmaster Michael Adams in the fifth and final round here.
Having drawn the first four games of the six-player round-robin tournament, Anand had to win to stay in contention for a podium finish and he was duly assisted by Adams who fought it out instead of going for a dull draw with white pieces.
The victory once more confirmed Anand’s presence in elite chess for some time. Just two weeks before this triumph, Anand had suffered defeat against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the World Championship match at Sochi and the quick recovery here showed that there is more to expect from the Indian on the chequered board.
Anand scored seven points in all under the soccer-like scoring system that gives three points for a win and one for a draw. With his sole victory apart from the four draws, Anand matched Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Anish Giri of the Netherlands on points. But since he had superior tie-break score and won a game with black pieces, he was declared the winner of the title.
The London scoring system favours the player who wins with black pieces and both Giri and Kramnik had won only with white pieces in the tournament.
Hikaru Nakamura of United States was the only serious contender for title but he could not get the better of World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana of Italy. Nakamura ended on six points for his sole fourth spot while Adams and Caruana ended on an identical four points each.
Anand played comfortably with black pieces and held his own all through the game. The Queen-less middle game typical of the Berlin defence was on board a long time till Adams went for liquidation but an erroneous plan gave Anand the opening.
Adams was down to five minutes for nine moves and made the fatal error on the 32nd move in the knights and pawns endgame after which there was no looking back. Anand gobbled a Queen side pawn and then the march of black pawns to glory was inevitable. The game lasted just 36 moves.
Giri and Kramnik played out a draw out of a Catalan opening where the former played white.
