Norway Chess | Viswanathan Anand drops to rock bottom after losing to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand’s run at the Altibox Norway Chess tournament went from bad to worse as he went to the bottom of the table after losing to Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Anand is now placed at the bottom alongside France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with half a point each.
After losing to world champion Magnus Carlsen in the first round’s Armageddon game, his confidence looked to further exacerbate against Mamedyarov as she went down despite holding a decent position for a long time. The Azerbaijan, however, capitalized on a small mistake by Anand to get the first maximum of two points.
In other matches, USA’s Fabianoa Caruana won against Lagrave in classical time to push the Frenchman to the bottom of the table, while the remaining three ended in draws and led to deciding Armageddon games.
Alexander Grischuk of Russia drew against America’s Wesley So before the latter win the return game with black pieces. Carlsen, the local and global favourite in the tournament, surprisingly went through numerous anxious moments and was even close to losing in both the games Armenia’s Levon Aronian. However, Aronian bottled up massively as he kept overlooking winning moves numerous times first in the classical and then subsequently in the Armageddon.
China’s Ding Liren, who was the second Asian to surpass 2800 rating barrier and Anand's successor in the continent, went down against compatriot Yu Yangyi in the Armageddon game.
With seven rounds of matches still to come, Mamedyarov is sitting at the top with 3.5 points and is followed by Carlsen and Yangyi on 3 points each. The fourth spot is taken by Caruna with 2.5 points.
Results round 2: V Anand (Ind, 0.5) lost to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 3.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 2) lost to Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 3); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 2) beat Maxime Vachier Lagrave (Fra, 0.5); Yu Yangyi (Chn, 3) beat Ding Liren (Chn, 2); Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 1) lost to Wesley So (Usa, 2).
Results round 1: Magnus Carlsen (Nor) beat V Anand (Ind) 1.5-0.5; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze) beat Fabiano Caruana (Usa) 1.5-0.5; Levon Aronian (Arm) beat Alexander Grischuk (Rus) 1.5-0.5; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) lost to Yu Yangyi (Chn) 0.5-1.5; Ding Liren (Chn) beat Wesley So (Usa) 1.5-0.5.
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