Viswanathan Anand raised visions of a possible win over World champion Magnus Carlsen in their 54-move draw in the seventh round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament here on Saturday.
Out of the opening lines of Sicilian Rossolimo, Anand looked clearly better but could not consolidate his position beyond a point. A worried Carlsen was banking on Anand to err in time-pressure but the veteran held on. Eventually, Carlsen found a way to draw.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Iranian Alireza Firouzja continued to make the chess world sit up and take note of his exceptional showings.
He defeated USA’s Jeffery Xiong to regain sole lead at five points — half-a-point ahead of Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Jorden van Foreest.
The leader is 1.5 points ahead of Magnus Carlsen, Anand and four others.
In the Challengers’ Category, young Nihal Sarin (4) was the only winner of the day after conquering Dinara Saduakassova in 47 moves. Joint-second Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5) drew with Rauf Mamedov.
The results (seventh round): Viswanathan Anand (3.5) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 3.5); Alireza Firouzja (FIDE, 5) bt Jeffery Xiong (USA, 3); Fabiano Caruana (USA, 4.5) bt Daniil Dubov (Rus, 3.5); Nikita Vitiugov (Rus, 2.5) lost to Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 4.5); Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 3.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 3.5); Vladislav Artemiev (Rus, 3.5) drew with Wesley So (USA, 4.5); Vladislav Kovalev (Blr, 1.5) drew with Yu Yangyi (Chn, 2.5).
