Altibox Norway Chess | Viswanathan Anand loses to Magnus Carlsen
Viswanathan Anand’s decent run in the Classical game came to an end when he was outwitted by finely disguised manoeuvres in the Armageddon game against Magnus Carlsen. Anand was always the second favourite in the clash and Carlsen’s aggressive approach in the middle game made all the difference.
With the Armageddon rule being invented for a super tournament for the first time ever, the tournament saw as many as five decisive results in the shorter format and the top chess aces were intrigued with the idea of fighting it out in the shorter format. The Classical games could only see brief spells of fighting but Carlsen looked unusually serious in beating Anand.
And the Norwegian was successful in doing that for the Indian ace fell to some deceiving moves, therefore managing only half a point out of the possible two. Though Anand was decent in the Classical game, he couldn’t keep it up in the Armageddon game in the first match of the Altibox Norway chess tournament in Stavanger, Norway on Thursday.
The Indian saw an under average middle game even by his standard following an endgame by Carlsen. Carlsen, Aronian, Mamedyarov, Liren and Yangyi all have 1.5 points and are currently leading with full points over the other five participants who have a half point.
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.