Caruana Beats Anand

Caruana Beats Anand
By Arvind Aaron

The Indian Grand Master Viswanathan Anand suffered a setback in round ten of the FIDE Candidates Chess Tournament in Moscow on March 23, 2016. The defeat, his second in the event pushed him from joint lead to shared third place.

Italian origin Fabiano Caruana representing the United States of America beat Anand with a bishop sacrifice to join lead with Sergey Karjakin of Russia on six points. Four rounds remain to be played. Anand and Levon Aronian of Armenia are in the third-fourth places with 5.5 points.

Anand faces Karjakin with the white pieces in the eleventh round. Already the most enterprising player with three wins and two defeats, having played fifty percent decisive games, the mood of Anand to play for a win will be a crucial factor.

Many expect Caruana to be a favourite to challenge Magnus Carlsen and even turn victorious. The venue is also New York. Carlsen who is one year older to Caruana calls him, “clever guy”. Caruana remained quiet in the first half with seven draws and has turned explosive with wins in both white games in the second half.

This 8-player event will conclude on March 30 with the winner to challenge Magnus Carlsen at New York from Nov 11-30, 2016. The prize fund in this Candidates is Euro 420,000.

In the game, after returning the material soon, Anand also gave an exchange and lost in 33 moves with the black pieces in an English opening.

The results (round 10): Peter Svidler (Rus, 4.5) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 4), Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 6) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 5), Fabiano Caruana (USA, 6) bt Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 5.5), Levon Aronian (Arm, 5.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 3.5).