Press Trust of India
London, Dec 5: Viswanathan Anand’s failure to find the winning formula continued to haunt him Friday as he failed to press hard with his white pieces and had to settle for a draw with Michael Adams of England in the first round of the London Chess Classic that got underway here.
Having done badly in the second edition of the Grand Chess tour following a couple of early defeats, Anand took a safer approach and it was a cautious start by the Indian ace to set the pace in the tournament.
The day in fact produced as many as four draws out of five games and only Dutchman Anish Giri was lucky enough to have scored a full point when his opponent Veselin Topalov failed to spot a relatively simple tactic.
World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway started his campaign by getting an easy draw as black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France while Russian Alexander Grischuk and American Hikaru Nakamura played some tense chess before agreeing to a stalemate. In the other game of the day, Fabiano Caruana of Italy too played solidly against Levon Aronian of Armenia to force a draw.
Anand did not mince his words when asked about his plans. Commentator Jennifer Shahade asked Anand on how confident he felt about winning the Grand Chess Tour. “My first aim is to play a good tournament and win the London event and then think about the Grand Chess Tour,” Anand said.