Anand beats Carlsen, Takes Bronze Medal

Anand beats Carlsen, Takes Bronze Medal
By Arvind Aaron

World chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the World Rapid Chess Championship that concluded at Dubai on June 18, 2014. Carlsen suffered one defeat against Viswanathan Anand in round twelve and then did well to finish half a point ahead of the 113-player field.

Carlsen defeated World Junior champion Yu Yangyi of China and Grischuk of Russia following the Anand defeat and then drew Radjabov (Aze) for the title. He scored 11/15. Five rounds were played each day with rapid controls.

Four players shared the second spot with 10.5 points. It included Fabiano Caruana (Ita), Viswanathan Anand (Ind), Levon Aronian (Arm) and Alexander Morozevich (Rus). Caruana got the silver and undefeated Anand picked up the bronze medal.

After his twelfth round win over Carlsen, Anand snatched the lead. But ge drew the last three rounds against Caruana, Radjabov and Aronian to allow other players to catch up.

Players from 42 countries took part. It included 97 Grand Masters, six IMs, 5 FMs, and one Candidate Master. Russia fielded 20 players, the most followed by Ukraine nine and India seven. The chief arbiter was IA Abdulrahim Mahdi and the Tournament Director was IO Najeeb Saleh. The venue was the Dubai Chess Club.

The World Blitz Championship will be played over 21 rounds after which the players will leave for their home countries. The prize fund in the World Rapid was 400,000 dollars with Carlsen getting USD 40,000.

Anand played all 15 GMs in three days and remained undefeated. He started as the ninth seed and took third place. He played at 2866 Elo. Other Indians:
52 P Harikrishna 7.5
60 S.S. Ganguly 7.5
70 Debashis Das 7.0
75 M Shyam Sundar 7.0
94 Sandipan Chanda 6.0
101 Sriram Jha 5.5.