Viswanathan Anand let World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana off the hook and then suffered a painful loss in the eighth round of Tata Steel Masters chess tournament here on Sunday.
In this Queen’s Gambit Declined game, Anand gained sizeable advantage with black pieces after Caruana blundered in time-pressure by opting for the exchange of queens. Thereafter, Anand twice missed clearly winning advantage by failing to find the moves of optimum strength and blundered away the game. This escape to victory saw Caruana join Alireza Firouzja in the lead at 5.5 points.
Going into Monday’s day of rest, Magnus Carlsen ended a seven-game draw sequence with a win over Russia’s Nikita Vitiugov. Anand, with three points, is in the 10th spot in the 14-player field.
In the Challengers category, Surya Shekhar Ganguly (5) continued to share the second spot with five points following a drawn encounter with Dutch rival Erwin L’Ami in 49 moves.
Nihal Sarin (4), however, lost his second game after facing David Anton Guijarro in 65 moves.
The results: Fabiano Caruana (USA, 5.5) bt Viswanathan Anand (3.5); Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 5) drew with Alireza firouzja (FIDE, 5.5); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 4.5) bt Nikita Vitiugov (Rus, 2.5); Jeffery Xiong (USA, 3) lost to Vladislav Kovalev (Blr, 2.5); Yu Yangyi (Chn, 2.5) lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 4.5); Daniil Dubov (Rus, 4) drew with Wesley So (USA, 5); Anish Giri (Ned, 4) drew with Vladislav Artemiev (Rus, 4).
