Anand draws with Karjakin, shock defeat for Harikrishna

Wijk Aan Zee: World Champion Viswanathan Anand opened his campaign with an exciting draw against defending champion Sergey Karjakin in the ‘A’ group of the Corus Chess Tournament here.

Grandmaster Alexei Shirov of Spain and local star Loek Van Wely emerged as early leaders in the category-19 event scoring victories over Hungarian Peter Leko and Britton Nigel Short respectively. The remaining four games ended in draws. In the ‘B’ group, Indian Grandmaster P Harikrishna suffered an early jolt at the hands of young Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri. The other Indian in the fray - Parimarjan Negi played out a fighting draw with David Howell of England.Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta started his campaign in the ‘C’ group with a draw against Robin Swinkles of Holland while world junior girls’ champion Soumya Swaminathan found her nemesis in American GM Ray Robson. It was a deep preparation by Anand in the Arkhengelsk variation of the Ruy Lopez. The Indian ace played black and even though it looked Karjakin was trying to press for a victory, Anand had his resources intact. The middle game was on expected lines as the Ukrainian got an extra pawn typical of the opening system and then transposed to a heavy pieces endgame. Anand found the right moves at appropriate times and the peace was signed after 40 moves. Even though Karjakin felt that he had some chances, Anand said there was never any real danger of losing and that he had ample compensation for the pawn. Anish Giri also got the best game prize of Group ‘B’ for his fine technical victory against Harikrishna. It was Slav defense wherein Harikrishna, playing with black, sacrificed a piece for three pawns but when the endgame arise an inaccuracy cost the Indian dear as his extra pawns fell in quick time. Anish, who has Nepalese origin, did not make any mistakes thereafter and wrapped the issue in 55 moves. Parimarjan Negi had to defend a difficult position for a long time against Howell in another Slav defense game of the day. Playing black, the Indian reached a pawn less rook and pawns endgame and took his chances to eventually get a half point. In the ‘C’ group Abhijeet played the Sicilian Classical and it was quite exciting when he got an optically better endgame. Swinkles, who is emerging as a strong player, found the right maneuvers to force the truce. Soumya Swaminathan played the Najdorf Sicilian against Robson but ended up on the receiving end after misjudging her position. It was a fairly balanced middle game from but choice of going for a slightly worse knight and pawn endgame proved decisive. Robson won in 51 moves. PTI