London: Anand has a lucky escape, Vishnu sole winner among the Indians

The Berlin Defense, which has made an appearance in so many of the previous Anand-Carlsen clashes, was summoned once again by the champion players. Anand got a pleasant edge out of the opening, but he misplayed it towards the 40 move mark. Carlsen was not precise as usual and let the Indian ace slip away to a draw. Anand moved to the joint second position in the crosstable behind Anish Giri of Netherlands and Maxime Vachier Lagrave of France, who beat Bulgarian Veselin Topalov.

Among the Indians competing in the FIDE Open being held simultaneously, GM Vishnu Prasanna (2514) was the sole winner among the Indians as he removed IM Sopiko Guramishvili (2368) out of his way. IM Swayams Mishra (2477), IM Sagar Shah (2441), IM Crg Krishna (2367), IM Tania Sachdev (2357), all drew with their higher rated opponents. (Swayams, though, was playing a slightly lower-rated player). All of them move to the joint second place at 3.5/4, behind the leader Gm Evgeny Postny (2670) of Israel, who has a perfect 4.0/4.

Among the untitled players from India, V. Ap Karthik (2310), who had upset French GM Roman Edouard (2627) in the second round, also held a higher rated IM to a draw.