Viswanathan Anand slips to third after Nakamura loss
crashed to defeat against Hikaru Nakamura in fourth round of Norway Chess 2013.
Viswanathan Anand crashed to defeat against Hikaru Nakamura in the fourth round of Norway Chess 2013 on a day when Sergey Karjakin continued his storming run. The Russians win over Levon Aronian puts him 1.5 points ahead of Nakamura in second place,a staggering margin considering the strength of the Supertournament.
Anand went into the rest day on Saturday after a clinical win over Veselin Topalov and was in joint-second after three rounds. On Sunday,Anand,playing white,opted for the Ruy Lopez,an opening he had played in his first round game against Aronian. There were no surprises in the opening,except perhaps for the visual spectacle of an e-file pile-up,with seven pieces occupying all but one square along the straight. Black was left with doubled,isolated central pawns but by way of compensation had a pawn chain that had taken up fairly advanced station on whites queen-side. Nakamuras bishop too was sitting on the long diagonal,training its sights on whites castled king.
It was Nakamura who opened the position up with what was technically an inaccuracy,a pawn thrust deep in Anands territory. Nakamura is known to unbalance positions with bold pawn moves and though his 24th move was double edged,Anand blinked first. While Anands best chances lay in trading his rook and pawn for two minor pieces and slugging it out in the endgame,his passive move,attempting to clear an escape square for his king led him into trouble. Now Nakamuras knight made it all the way to the last rank,and in tandem with the bishop,was ripping holes into Anands defense. Soon,blacks queen,rook,bishop and knight were having a free run around whites king,and faced with overwhelming loss of material if he was to avoid checkmate,Anand resigned on move 39.
Anand had played Aronian,Magnus Carlsen and Topalov in the first three rounds,and having come away with two points from the tough set of matches,it was expected he would make a move on in the tournament,but it proved not to be.
In sole lead by the end of the third round,Karjakin continued his run in the tournament with a 38-move demolition of Aronian with black in the Queens Indian defense. The Russian,who is in red-hot form,will probably face his toughest challenge next round when he takes on World No. 1 Carlsen with white pieces.
Results,round four: Viswanathan Anand 2 lost to Hikaru Nakamura 2.5,Magnus Carlsen 1.5 drew with Peter Svidler 1.5,Levon Aronian 2 lost to Sergey Karjakin 3,Wang Hao 1 drew with Teimour Radjabov 0,Veselin Topalov 1 drew with Jon Ludvig Hammer 0.
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