Altibox Norway Chess: Anand draws with Vachier-Lagrave

Former World Champion Viswanathan Anand gained a draw with black pieces for a sedate beginning to his campaign.

Published : Jun 07, 2017 18:57 IST , Stavanger (Norway)

It turned out to be a relatively easy day for Viswanathn Anand with black pieces in the opener and the Indian ace can now look up to his next game with white pieces against Russian Vladimir Kramnik.

It turned out to be a relatively easy day for Viswanathn Anand with black pieces in the opener and the Indian ace can now look up to his next game with white pieces against Russian Vladimir Kramnik.

Former World champion Viswanathan Anand made a sedate beginning to his campaign in the Norway Chess 2017 following a 44-move draw with higher-ranked Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on Tuesday.
Anand opted for Carokann Defence and easily gained a draw with black pieces.

In the elite field, that has attracted 10 players from the World’s top-12 list, Hikaru Nakamura was the only winner of the opening day. Playing white, Nakamura defeated Anish Giri in 67 moves. The nine-round all-play-all event offers EUR 249,000 as prize-fund.

The results:

First round: Viswanathan Anand drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra); Hikaru Nakamura (USA) bt Anish Giri (Ned); Levon Aronian (Arm) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA), Magnus Carslen (Nor) drew with Wesley So (USA); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus).