JOIN USWorld champion Viswanathan Anand was off to a disappointing start, suffering a rare defeat as white against Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the first round of the Tal Memorial Chess Tournament here.
On what turned out to be a tough day for the world champion, Caruana did everything right after sacrificing a pawn in the middle game and Anand had little clues to better the judgement of the young Italian genius.
World number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway got off to a flying start defeating arch-rival Vladimir Kramnik of Russia to find himself in early lead in the 10-player round-robin tournament.
Besides Carlsen and Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan made merry at the expense of blitz tournament winner Hikaru Nakamura of United States to be in joint lead.
Results (round I): V Anand (Ind) lt to Fabiano Caruana (Ita); Magnus Carlsen (Nor) bt Vladimir Kramnik (Rus); Hikaru Nakamura (US) lt to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze); Boris Gelfand (Isr) drew Sergey Karjakin (Rus); Dmitry Andreikin (Rus) drew Alexander Morozevich (Rus).