Zurich Chess Challenge: India’s five-time world champion Anand draws with Italy’s Caruana

Zurich: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand opened his account after signing peace with Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the third round of Zurich chess challenge now underway here at the Savoy.

After two uncharacteristic defeats coming against world champion Levon Aronian of Armenia and Hikaru Nakamura of United States, Anand put an end to his losses with a solid draw wherein he had to defend for a while in the early stages.

World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway was the lucky one in the third round as he not only escaped from a certain defeat at the hands of Nakamura but also turned the tables upside down to score a victory.

The second win in his third game gave Carlsen a full point lead over nearest rivals as the Norwegian took his tally to five points.

Under the unique scoring system that gives two points for a win and one for a draw in Classical games, Aronian slipped to second spot on four points and he is now followed by Nakamura and Caruana on three points each.

Israeli Boris Gelfand stands sole fifth in the six-player tournament on two points while Anand with a sole draw is at the bottom of the tables with two rounds in Classical and five rounds in Rapid chess still to come in the tournament.

It may be recalled that in rapid, the usual point scoring system with one point for a win and half for a draw will be used and the winner will be the one who scores maximum points based under both scoring systems.

Anand went for the Slav defense as black and the game went in to uncharted territories early. Caruana was looking for some advantage with his pair of bishops in the ensuing middle game but Anand came up with a pawn sacrifice to neutralise white's initiative.