When the World Chess Candidates tournament resumes in Moscow on Wednesday after a day’s rest, the focus would mainly be on the joint leaders: five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand and Russia’s Sergey Karjakin.
If you went solely by the rating, you would not have expected those two names at the top of the table going into the business end of the tournament, with five rounds remaining. Of the eight men in Moscow, only Peter Svidler of Russia has a lower rating than the leading duo.
The way the age-defying Anand has played in this tournament, a Carlsen-Anand Part III looks a possibility. He had played Norway’s Magnus Carlsen in the last two World title matches. Read: >Anand moves to top spot
The Tiger of Madras has won three games in this Candidates; the latest was against Levon Aronian of Armenia in the ninth round on Monday. That was the only decisive game in that round, as the other three matches were drawn, with the one between Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Fabiano Caurana of the United States lasting for as many as 96 moves.
Anand is the only player to have won three games so far in the tournament. He and Karjakin, who still remains unbeaten, have 5.5 points each. Half-a-point behind them are Caruana and Aronian. Giri, who has drawn all his nine games, not entirely surprisingly, has 4.5.
The results (ninth round): Viswanathan Anand (Ind) bt 5.5 Levon Aronian (Arm) 5; Anish Giri (Ned) 4.5 drew with Fabiano Caruana (US) 5; Hikaru Nakamura (US) 3.5 drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus) 5.5; Veselin Topalov (Bul) 3 drew with Peter Svidler (Rus) 4.
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