Anand loses to Kramnik

Anand struggled once he allowed Kramnik to establish a ‘passed’ pawn on the queen-rook file after 34 moves.

In the only decisive battle of the day, in Ruy Lopez, Anand came up with an interesting preparation but it backfired.

Viswanathan Anand suffered a rare loss with white pieces to old friend and foe Vladimir Kramnik in the second round of Norway Chess 2017 here on Wednesday. In the only decisive battle of the day, in Ruy Lopez, Anand came up with an interesting preparation but it backfired.

Anand struggled once he allowed Kramnik to establish a ‘passed’ pawn on the queen-rook file after 34 moves. As it turned out, this pawn proved crucial in the end in this 60-move battle.

The results:

Second round: Viswanathan Anand (0.5) lost to Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1.5); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 1.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 1); Fabiano Caruana (USA, 1) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1); Wesley So (USA, 1) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1); Anish Giri (Ned, 0.5) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 1).