Isle of Man tournament | Viswanathan Anand settles for draw against USA’s Robert Hess
Viswanathan Anand played out a hard-fought draw against American counterpart, Robert Hess, in the second round of the ongoing Isle of Man Chess tournament. Meanwhile, Indian youngsters - Vidit Gujarati, Vaibhav Suri, Abhijeet Gupta, V. Vishnu Prasanna, and Harsha Bharathakoti continued to impress.
The ongoing Isle of Man Chess tournament has seen a host of Indian chess players display some promising results in the early rounds of the tournament. However, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand had to settle for a draw in the second round of the tournament against USA’s Robert Hess.
Anand (2771) found it tough to break through the French Defence being used by the American (2574). A loss of the extreme kingside pawn on the 36th move meant that Anand had to play on with a rook and three pawns against a rook and four pawns of his opponent.
The American was trying to force a win with the 52nd move after Anand gave up another pawn with the help of his two disjointed kingside pawns. However the former faltered with his decision to give up an advanced pawn on the 62nd move after which Anand was never in any serious threat of losing.
Meanwhile, five other Indian youngsters - Vidit Gujarati, Vaibhav Suri, Abhijeet Gupta, V. Vishnu Prasanna, and Harsha Bharathakoti formed part of the 19-player leaders’ group at two points each. Vishnu Prasanna stunned Israel’s Tamir Nabaty, Harsha outplayed fellow compatriot S.P. Sethuraman to register unexpected wins in round two. Several other Indians in the fray, including R. Praggnanandhaa, drew with rivals rated way higher above them in
