Viswanathan Anand plays out easy draw in second round

Anand had to come back from behind in the first round of the ongoing tournament but today it was a straight-forward day for the Indian as he had an easy outing against Russia’s Sergey Karjakin. Anand didn't have to stretch himself too much as Karjakin didn't attempt to complicate matters during the match. The match was just the players exchanging pieces at regular intervals and the players eventually shook hands in an opposite coloured Bishops endgame.

Indian Grandmaster B Adhiban paid a heavy price for his safe approach against Carlsen. Known for his combative and uncompromising chess that won him many fans in the last edition, Adhiban went for a sedate four knights Scotch opening and it never looked like he was in serious contention and lost the match to the World Champion.

The day, however, belonged to Anish Giri who scored his first ever victory over Kramnik in a classical game. Wild complexities right from the early middle game led to tactical possibilities from both sides and Giri was a step ahead of Kramnik for once. This marked Giri’s second win in the tournament allowing him to take sole lead at the top of the leaderboard. 

In the challenger’s sections, Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi scored a crushing victory over Michal Krasenkow of Poland and D Harika got her second good result on the trot as she held higher-ranked Dutchman Benjamin Bok to a draw.

With this draw, Viswanathan Anand is now joint second with 1.5 points in his bag. He is joined by Magnus Carlsen, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Jorden Van Foreest, Dmitry Gordievsky, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Anton Korobov in the second position on the leaderboard.