Anand shocked by Carlsen, slumps to joint fourth
Press Trust of India, India
Linares (Spain), Feb 26 (PTI) World champion Viswanathan Anand suffered a shocked defeat against Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen in the sixth round to slump to joint fourth of Magistral Ciudad de Linares chess tournament here.
With his second loss in the first six rounds, Anand has now three points out of a possible six and will have to do a lot of catching up in the remaining eight rounds of the Super Grandmasters tournament.
Anand now shares joint fourth spot with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine while Alexander Grischuk of Russia shot into sole lead on 4.5 points after shocking Levon Aronian of Armenia in another sensational result.
Aronian and Carlsen share the second spot on 3.5 points each while Lenier Dominguez of Cuba stands sole sixth on 2.5 points, a half point clear of Wang Yue of China and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.
Carlsen has been tipped by many experts as the future world champion not without reasons. The Norwegian showed immaculate technique to beat Anand for the first time ever in a Classical game.
Anand, who rallied from a hopeless position to score a victory against Ivanchuk in the previous round, had also lost to Aronian in the second round.
Clearly the world champion was not at his best form and Carlsen took full advantage of that in the game which lasted 77 moves.
PTI
Anand is preparing to his WCC defence probably against Topalov.
Yeah, and I saw pigs flying today as well.
okay
“Anand, who rallied from a hopeless position to score a victory against Ivanchuk in the previous round, had also lost to Aronian in the second round.
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I thought it was a draw
The WCC is in October so this loss has nothing to do with preparation. Linares is the most important tourney in the chess world, so either you play to win, or you don’t participate.