Viswanathan Anand crashed to a surprise 26-move defeat to Wesley So in the second round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament here on Sunday.
On a day when four players won with white pieces, Anand was apparently surprised by the choice of line chosen by So in Giuoco Piano. Anand sacrificed a piece in vain to get out of trouble and then missed a possible way drawing the game before giving up.
Five players shared the lead with 1.5 points.
In Group B, Surya Shekhar Ganguly (1.5) and Nihal Sarin (1) played with black and drew their games against Lucas van Foreest and Pavel Eljanov, respectively.
The results:
Second round: Wesley So (USA, 1.5) bt Viswanathan Anand (0.5); Xiong Jeffery (USA, 1.5) bt Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 1); Vladislav Artemiev (Rus, 1.5) bt Nikita Vitiugov (Rus, 0.5); Daniil Dubov (Rus, 1.5) bt Vladislav Kovalev (Blr, 0); Anish Giri (Ned, 1) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 1); Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 1) drew with Alireza Firouza (FIDE, 1.5); Yu Yangyi (Chn, 0.5) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1).
