Anand Undefeated, Gains 11 Elo

By Arvind Aaron

Five time former world champion Viswanathan Anand remained undefeated in the 10-player 5th Sinquefield Cup that took place at Saint Louis in the United States from August 2-12.

Anand, 1969-born player, won two games, and gains 11 Elo playing at a rating performance of 2866. Anand scored 5.5 and shared the second-third places with world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway. Prize money was $75,000, $50,000 and $40,000 for the top three finishers. Total prize fund was USD 300,000.

The oldest in this group to compete and actually end up gaining Elo is an achievement already. The 47-year old Indian will be at 2794 in the next rating list on September 1, 2017.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France won this event with 6/9 with an impressive win over Carlsen. He and Anand remained undefeated in this category 22 event that had an average rating of 2787.

American trio of So, Caruana and Nakamura together lost 37 Elo and the trio of Maxime, Magnus and Anand gained 31 rating points. Seventeen of the 45 games were decisive. Aronian, So, Nepomniachtchi featured in five decisive games each.

Final placings: 1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) 6/9; 2-3. Magnus Carlsen (Nor), Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 5.5 each; 4-5. Sergey Karjakin (Rus), Levon Aronian (Arm) 5 each; 6 Peter Svidler (Rus) 4.5; 7 Fabiano Caruana (Ita) 4; 8 Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 3.5; 9-10. Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus), Wesley So (USA) 3 each.