Douglas: Viswanathan Anand capped his impressive run with another victory over Chinese grandmaster Hou Yifan in the ninth and final round to sign off joint second at the Isle Of Man Chess Championship here Sunday.
Anand took 53 moves to overpower Yifan to finish with seven points. He shared the second spot with America’s Hikaru Nakamura. World Champion Magnus Carlsen won the title with 7.5 points after a short draw against Nakamura to pocket a cheque of 50,000 pounds.
“Notching up five victories in a tournament of such high start is quite satisfactory,” Anand stated after his last round match. “It gives me great confidence for the remainder of the year,” the Indian ace added.
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Swapnil S Dhopade finished at the joint third position at 6.5 points after playing out draws against Hungarian Rapport Richard and Ukraine’s Eljanov Pavel respectively.
Among other Indians, Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan ended at the joint 13th spot at six points after signing truce with Vallejo Pons Francisco while SP Sethuraman drew with compatriot Swayams Mishra to finish at five points at the 48th place.
Harika Dronavalli and Bhaskaran Adhiban signed off with wins over Degtiarev Evgeny and Batsiashvili Nino respectively while young prodigy R Praggnanandhaa also ended his campaign with a fluent victory over Balint Vilmos.
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