Croatia Grand Chess Tour | V Anand succumbs to second defeat against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

07/07/2019

Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand’s run in the Croatia Grand Chess Tour went from consistently average to poor as he lost his second game of the tournament to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov on Saturday. Meanwhile world champion Magnus Carlsen has kept his seven point lead at the top intact.

It was the only decisive encounter of the ninth round that took place yesterday and the Indian Grandmaster went down in 45 moves as the Indian’s round ended with seven-game sequence of draws.

Since the very beginning, Anand has been down in form in the tournament and after a first-round loss to Russia’s Nepomniachtchi in the very first round despite a positive start to the game. And he has failed to get a positive result since. He has since played out a draw against America’s Wesley So and French chess player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave amongst others.

Amongst the very latest players to draw with Anand are China’s Ding Liren, Holland’s Anish Giri, and Fabiano Caruana of the United States.

THE RESULTS:

Ninth round:

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 4.5) bt Viswanathan Anand (3.5).

Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 7) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 5.5).

Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 5.5) drew with Wesley So (USA, 6.5).

Caruana Fabiano (USA, 5.5) drew with Ding Liren (Chn, 5).

Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 4.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 4.5).

Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 3.5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 4.5).