By Sagar Shah
Moscow: Viswanathan Anand brought his World Candidates Championship campaign to a close, settling for a draw in his last match against Peter Svidler.
The Indian ace, who conceded the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the first time since 2008, finished with a score of 7.5/14 and had to settle for the third spot behind Russia’s Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana of Italy.
Local favourite Karjakin beat Caruana in the last round to win the Moscow event and will take on Carlsen in the World Championship Match in November 2016.
Anand scored one point less than Karjakin, but was definitely the most uncompromising player at the event. He had the most decisive games. In such events it is natural that competitors remain completely solid. For example, Dutch talent Anish Giri finished with 14 draws and no wins or loses! Svidler had one win, one loss and Aronian had two each. But Vishy had seven decisive games – four wins and three loses! In a tournament that had 16 decisive games out of 56, Anand contributed nearly 45% of the non-drawn games.
“Bit of a roller coaster. I had some very good moments. In the end third is a good result but I spoilt some really good chances. It could just have been a dream tournament. Then again you cannot pick and choose – you cannot just keep the wins and say the losses shouldn’t have happened. Mixed feelings but at least I will go back with something positive”, is how Anand described his experience.
Truly, it was a complete roller coaster not only for him but for all the millions of his fans back home who were eagerly following each and every move of the 14 games that he played at the event.
The analyses of his victories and defeats reveal a clear pattern. All of Anand’s wins came with white and all his losses were with the black. He well might won the event had he knew how to limit the damage with black pieces. But as the master said at the start: “You cannot pick and choose!”
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