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World Champion Viswanathan Anand’s hope of winning the Tal Memorial chess championship is all but over after the Indian played out a draw against Hikaru Nakamura in the penultimate round here.
With his eighth consecutive draw in as many rounds in the 10-player round robin tournament, Anand is almost out of the reckoning for a top finish as he has only four points in his kitty out of a possible eight.
Anand will face his world championship challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel in the next round.
Levon Aronian beat Peter Svidler of Russia and surge ahead in the points table with one round still to go.
On a day when the other games ended in draw affairs, Aronian took his tally to five points in all and is now followed by Russian duo of Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who all have 4.5 points apiece.
Anand holds the sixth spot while Russians Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler are tied on the seventh spot on 3.5 points each. Sharing the last spot are Gelfand and Nakamura of United States.
Against Nakamura, Anand tried to make his last white count but missed the opportunity. Nakamura employed the King’s Indian defense and faced the Saemisch variation and Indian ace was soon in control after an unwarranted pawn advance by the American on the queen side.
With his eighth consecutive draw in as many rounds in the 10-player round robin tournament, Anand is almost out of the reckoning for a top finish as he has only four points in his kitty out of a possible eight.
Anand will face his world championship challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel in the next round.
Levon Aronian beat Peter Svidler of Russia and surge ahead in the points table with one round still to go.
On a day when the other games ended in draw affairs, Aronian took his tally to five points in all and is now followed by Russian duo of Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who all have 4.5 points apiece.
Anand holds the sixth spot while Russians Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler are tied on the seventh spot on 3.5 points each. Sharing the last spot are Gelfand and Nakamura of United States.
Against Nakamura, Anand tried to make his last white count but missed the opportunity. Nakamura employed the King’s Indian defense and faced the Saemisch variation and Indian ace was soon in control after an unwarranted pawn advance by the American on the queen side.
