Isle of Man: Winning start for Anand

In a formidable field of 160 players, including 30 Indians, Viswanathan Anand beat USA’s Marc Esserman in 46 moves in the first round.

Viswanathan Anand won his first round match in 46 moves.

Viswanathan Anand made a winning start to his campaign in the Isle of Man chess tournament by beating USA’s Marc Esserman in 46 moves on Saturday.

In a formidable field of 160 players, including 30 Indians, the top eight players were made to randomly pick their first-round rivals that left second seed Vladimir Kramnik facing third seed Fabiano Caruana.

As it turned out, Caruana joined top seed Magnus Carlsen and Anand among 57 first-round winners. Some of the leading names are taking part in this event to boost their ratings to be eligible to make the field for next year's Candidates tournament.

Among the Indians, B. Adhiban did well to hold Boris Gelfand, C. R. G. Krishna upstaged Pavel Tregubov (Russia), National junior champion Harsha Bharathakoti held Armenia’s Sergei Movsesian and Nihal Sarin proved equal to USA’s Varuzhan Akobian.

Leading first round results (Indians unless stated): Viswanathan Anand beat Marc Esserman; Neelotpal Das lost to Hikaru Nakamura (USA); B. Adhiban drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr); Aravindh Chithambaram lost to Pons Francisco Vallejo (Esp); Vidit Gujrathi drew with Rasmus Svane (Ger); Sergie Movsesian (Arm) drew with Harsha Bharathakoti; Varuzhan Akobian (USA) drew with Nihal Sarin; S. P. Sethuraman beat Alexander Dongchenko (Ger); Yuliya Shvayger (Isr) lost to Swapnil Dhopade; D. Harika beat Akito Oyama (Eng); P. Magesh Chandran beat Johannes Paul (Ger); Dietmar Kolbus (Ger) lost to R. Praggnanandhaa.