Isle of Man Int’l: Anand, Swapnil post wins

Easy for Anand; Swapnil stuns Nigel Short. Triumphant Carlsen virtually assured title.

Published : Oct 01, 2017 17:11 IST , Isle of Man

 Viswanathan Anand occupies the third spot alongside Swapnil Dhopade and Vidit Gujrathi.
Viswanathan Anand occupies the third spot alongside Swapnil Dhopade and Vidit Gujrathi.
lightbox-info

Viswanathan Anand occupies the third spot alongside Swapnil Dhopade and Vidit Gujrathi.

Viswanathan Anand scored an important victory with black pieces against Frenchman Laurent Fressinet and shared the third spot after the eighth and penultimate round of the Isle of Man chess tournament here on Saturday.

Read: Vidit Gujrathi holds Carlsen

On the top board, world champion Magnus Carlsen outplayed third seed Fabiano Caruana to move within a draw of claiming the title. To emerge as a worthy champion on Sunday, Carlsen needs only a draw against Hikaru Nakamura, who easily dismantled Emil Sutovsky on this day.

Swapnil Dhopade kept Anand’s company in joining Vidit Gujrathi at six points, after overpowering England’s Nigel Short. Earlier, Vidit had raised his tally by half a point by drawing with Pavel Eljanov.

GM norm for Harsha; IM norm for Arjun Kalyan

The day also saw Harsha Bharathakoti make his maiden Grandmaster norm, with a round to spare. Playing his eighth successive Grandmaster-rival, the recently-crowned National junior champion drew
with Aravindh Chithambaram to reach five points. For a player with a modest rating of 2394, Harsha has so far performed at a whopping 2745 level, with an average rating of his rivals being 2650.

Young Arjun Kalyan made his International Master norm by reaching four points after drawing with Germany’s Jonas Lampert.

The results (involving Indians):

Eighth round: Vidit Gujrathi (6) drew with Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 6); Laurent Fressinet (Fra, 5) lost to Viswanathan Anand (6); Swapnil Dhopade (6) bt Nigel Short (Eng, 4.5); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 5.5) bt
S. P. Sethuraman (4.5); S. L. Narayanan (5.5) bt Alexander Raizantsev (Rus, 4.5); Harsha Bharathakoti (5) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (4.5); Arkadij Naiditsch (Aze, 5) bt P. Magesh Chandran (4); Swayams Mishra (4.5) drew with B. Adhiban (4.5); Vishnu Prasanna (4.5) drew with James Tarjan (USA, 4.5); Jan Woellermann (Ger, 4.5) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa (4.5); Nihal Sarin (5) bt Anna Rudolf (Hun, 4); Boris Gelfand (4) drew with Hemant Sharma (4); John Paul Wallace (Aus, 4) drew with D. Harika (4); Arjun Kalyan (4) drew with Jonas Lampert (Ger, 4); N. R. Visakh (4.5) bt R. Vaishali (3.5); Andrew Ledger (Eng, 4) drew with Neelotpal Das (4); K. Ratnakaran (3.5) lost to Yuliya Shvayger (Isr, 4.5); Eesha Karavade (3.5) bt Krikor Sevag Mekhitarian (Bra, 3.5); Fenil Shah (3) lost to Pier Luigi Basso (Ita, 4); S. Kidambi (4) bt B Vignesh (3); C. R. G. Krishna (4) bt Raja Harshit (4).

Sign in to unlock all user benefits
  • Get notified on top games and events
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign up / manage to our newsletters with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early bird access to discounts & offers to our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide to our community guidelines for posting your comment