Tbilisi (Georgia): Former World Champion Viswanathan Anand suffered a shocking defeat Thursday at the hands of Canadian Grandmaster Anton Kovalyov and now faces ouster threat from the World Chess Cup here.
Anand opened with Sicilian Najdorf and brought in a variation that had Kovalyov in trouble during the middle game. But the Canadian held firm with some fine defensive manoeuvres.
After the trade of Queens, the Canadian GM was surprised by a knight sacrifice by Anand but again held on to his guard despite his King taking a walk around the centre.
As it turned out, Anand’s sacrifice was not enough to get any advantage and in the end Kovalyov’s extra piece had the final say.
Down a point in the two-game mini-match, Anand will now have to win with black pieces in the return game to stay in the contest. Then he will have to win the tie-breaker sets to advance in the competition.
Meanwhile, Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi made a strong bid for the third round by winning his game as black against top Vietnamese Le Quang Leim. He now just needs a draw in the next game which should not be a tall order with white pieces.
Grandmaster SP Sethuraman showed his first round victory against Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine was no flash in the pan and easily held higher-ranked compatriot Pentala Harikrishna to a draw with black pieces.
The other remaining Indian, B Adhiban was up to the task in a deep opening preparation and drew with higher-rated Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. Sacrifice and counter sacrifices ensued right from the beginning in this spectacular game and in the end the draw was agreed through repetition of moves.
In the other top matches, World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway outclassed Aleksey Dreev of Russia while Vladimir Kramnik put it across his Russian counterpart Anton Demchenko.
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