Anand posts easy victory

World champion Viswanathan Anand bounced back from the disappointing results of the past two rounds to defeat Russian Alexander Morozevich in a positional skirmish in the third round of the Tal Memorial chess tournament here.

After a loss against Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the opener and a tense draw in the second round against Russian champion Dmitry Andreikin, the world champion showed form against Morozevich and outplayed him when it mattered the most to move back to a 50 per cent score in one of the strongest tournaments of recent times. The battle will resume after the first rest day slated on Sunday.

Results (Round III): V Anand (Ind, 1.5) bt Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 1); Hikaru Nakamura (US, 2) bt Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 2); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 2) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 0.5); Magnus Carlsen (Rus, 1.5) lt to Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 2); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 2) drew with Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 1.5).