Anand nails Kramnik, ends second
World champion Viswanathan Anand capitalised on a blunder by Vladimir Kramnik of Russia to beat him in the final round and finish second in the Zurich Chess Challenge that concluded here.
The Indian ace got lucky when Kramnik had a rare oversight resulting in a full point and the first victory for the world champion here. Caruana won the tournament finishing on a high with a fine victory over Boris Gelfand of Israel. Anand finished sole second with one win, a loss and four draws tallying three points in all.
Anand declined the main line of the Berlin defence making it clear that it was game on against his 2008 World Championship rival. The middle game had typical nuances of an exchange Ruy Lopez but Kramnik was not worse in any case. Anand hung in there with some correct manoeuvres and Kramnik could have drawn on move 20 if he wanted.
However, on move 21, the Russian came up with an inexplicable blunder. In order to maintain queens on board, Kramnik made the fatal error that cost him heavy material damage in just a couple of moves thereafter. Anand won in 27 moves.
Results (final round): V Anand (Ind, 3) bt Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 2.5); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 4) bt Boris Gelfand (Isr, 2.5).
