Stavanger (Norway): Viswanathan Anand defeated out-of-sort Alexander Grischuk while Magnus Carlsen sealed the title at the Altibox Norway chess tournament with a round to spare, here. Anand’s chances to be in top three had ended after he lost to American Fabiano Caruana in the previous round.
Carlsen scored his sixth tournament victory of the year defeating Yu Yangyi of China in the Classical game itself. While it was only his second Classical win in the tournament, Carlsen has also won all the remaining six matches in the Armageddon stage to reach 13 points. It’s now a four points margin between the winner and second placed Levon Aronian who lost to Caruana in what was the best game of the tournament by the American. It’s a three-way tie for the third spot with Yu Yangyi, Wesley So of America and Caruana all tied on 8.5 points.
Ding Liren of China occupies the sixth spot on eight points, a half point ahead of Anand and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France. Anand’s win over Grischuk happened because of the draw-odds rule for black in the Armageddon. It was a balanced game wherein Grischuk had to take risks. Anand went as far as saying that there are no victories in Armageddon unless White wins. “Because White is playing under this pressure he is often taking quite unjustified risks, so it’s not a normal victory in any sense,” he said.
Earlier in the blindfold game Anand played the open Spanish and had little troubles as his preparation came good. “I was happy to get in some preparation. I checked exactly this line till the very end.”