Defending champion Vishwanathan Anand suffered a shocking defeat, going down to lowly-rated Olivier Touzane of France with white pieces in the opening round of the World chess championship in Moscow on Tuesday.
Also losing was second seed Michael Adams (white), who was beaten by Gaetan Sarthou after 32 moves.
Touzane, with an Elo rating of 2382, is one of the eight players who qualified for the event through the worldwide Internet championship Indeed, the form book was thrown out of the window as, despite playing with the favourable colour, the tournament favourite and top seed was forced to bite the dust by an opponent ranked the lowest in the 128-player field in the knock-out competion.
Anand will now have to win the second game and the tie-break against Touzane to stay in contention for the title.
India suffered another setback when Dibyendu Barua lost to formidable Grandmaster Joel Lautier of France. However, India's other players did well to finish with draws.
Young Indian Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna (2522) drew with Alexander Beliavsky (2659) of Slovakia after 33 moves in his first game while Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran (2589) was also forced to split the point after drawing with Grandmaster Vereslav Eingorn (2598) of the Ukraine after 25 moves.
Bureau Report