Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, May 31: Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess master, defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in round seven of the Norway Chess blitz event on route to a fourth-place finish.
However, in the 10-player blitz event early on Tuesday, the former world champion lost to Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) in the fourth and ninth rounds, respectively, to end with 5 points.
In the blitz, the Indian GM defeated Aryan Tari (Norway), before drawing with Wesley So in round two. In the third round, he defeated veteran Veselin Topalov before sharing the point with Teimur Radjabov.
Anand defeated Carlsen after losing to Giri and drawing with Hao Wang (China). After starting with 2.5 points from the first three rounds, a draw against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov followed by a loss to Vachier-Lagrave put an end to his aspirations of a high finish.
Anand’s victory over Carlsen follows his compatriot and teen star R Praggnandhaa’s recent victory over the Norwegian world champion in an online blitz event.
American Wesley So took first place in the Blitz rankings with 6.5 points, one point ahead of Carlsen, and Giri took third place. As a result, he earned the chance to choose his starting number in the traditional competition.
The 10 players will play a classical event beginning later on Tuesday. Notably, Anand begins his journey in the Classical event with a game against Vachier-Lagrave.
