Grand Chess Tour | Viswanathan Anand held to a draw by Fabiano Caruana; Magnus Carlsen triumphs over Ding Liren

Having drawn in the last game against China’s Ding Liren in a match that did not last long, the affair against Caruana was much more drawn out and full of opportunities. The closed Sicilian pawn formation meant that Caruana was thrown on the backfoot but Anand failed to drive home the advantage of having an extra pawn. Caruana kept clawing his back into the game even though Anand was in a much better position to win at a point in time, only for Caruana to find a way to have the match end as a theoretically drawn endgame.

Meanwhile, having ended the last round as the sole reader, Magnus Carlsen held his top spot with a victory of Chinese Ding Liren. While Carlsen seemed to be the more comfortable of the two as Liren took significantly longer to plan out and play his moves, the latter finally seemed to have found level footing when the queens got traded. However, reigning world champion Carlsen rose to the occasion and with some eloquent moves ended the game in 59 moves.