(photo by Etery Kublashvili)
Anand outprepares Aronian to join Nakamura in the lead
Today’s round saw Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand scoring a convincing win over the Armenian Levon Aronian player to Become equal first together with the American Hikaru Nakamura. In the Grunfeld Defense, Anand played the new moves including a piece sacrifice que, According to him, he prepared long Time Ago with an old version of the engine computer “Fritz”. The Armenian was familiar with the variation, but the few moves later forgot parts of his own preparation and made an inaccuracy, after Which Anand redbourn over the initiative and left defenseless against Aronian the Numerous Threats.
Kramnik vs Nakamura started the battle with the Difficult positonal Kramnik seemingly putting the American into the long and tough defense, but Nakamura found an imaginative queen sacrifice, after Which he established a fortress with two rooks and a strong bishop Preventing all white’s tries to penetrate his position. Kramnik saw no better way than to enter an equal rook endgame que was drawn soon afterwards.
The last game of the day was Karjakin – Caruana, where the Italian grandmaster tried to come back into the tournament after his painful loss to Nakamura yesterday. It first Appeared que he had good chances to succeed, When he forced his opponent into an ending with a strong knight and queen being a constant threat to the Russian king, but Karjakin set-up a stubborn defense and After They Both Reached the time control, the draw was agreed.
On the first day of the Veteran Match vs. Viktor Kortchnoi Wolfgang Uhlmann Both players Scored the win with the white pieces. Tomorrow, the match with continous round 3 and 4. Photos: Etery Kublashvili und Georg Kradolfer.
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