The 3rd edition of the Sinquefield Cup took off in a breathtaking fashion with all the 5 games in Round 1 finishing decisively.
The biggest result of the day was World Champion Magnus Carlsen’s defeat against World No. 3 Veselin Topalov. The Carlsen-Topalov game, which took off with the Moscow Variation in the Sicilian Defence, turned murky right in the opening. Although both sides made inaccuracies, it was Topalov who emerged as the beneficiary of the complicated opening battle. After a few precise moves, Topalov took total control over the matters and duly converted his advantage into a full-point.
Meanwhile, World No. 2 Viswananthan Anand went down with the black pieces against his arch-rival Hikaru Nakamura. Although the Nakamura-Anand encounter turned out to be a tougher fight than the rest of the games, the ‘Madras Tiger’ was unable to hold his position for too long and soon lost an important pawn on move 42. Anand promptly resigned on move 43, albeit a bit prematurely.
The rest of the games, pretty much like Carlsen-Topalov, turned out to be one-sided affairs with the winners dominating their opponents for the major part of their respective games.
Round 1 Results:
|
White |
Result | Black |
| Giri, Anish | 1-0 |
Grischuk, Alexander |
|
So, Wesley |
0-1 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime |
| Aronian, Levon | 1-0 |
Caruana, Fabiano |
|
Carlsen, Magnus |
0-1 | Topalov, Veselin |
|
Nakamura, Hikaru |
1-0 |
Anand, Viswanathan |