Sandnes, Norway: Taking a big risk and going all out for a victory to be in contention for the title worked against Viswanathan Anand as he ended on the losing side against Wang Hao of China in the ninth and last round of the Norway Super Chess tournament.
Late last night yesterday in the 8th round, the tournament was suddenly wide open with the shocking defeats of leader Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated player in the world who was trailing in second place.
In a ding dong game where fortunes fluctuated, Peter Svidler prevailed over Karjakin while Carlsen made mistakes in the ending, missed equalizing chances to lose out to Wang Hao.
Karjakin despite the loss was leading the 10 player event with 5.5 points while NIIT MindChampion Anand and Carlsen followed behind with 5 points each. Carslen and Karjakin’s losses changed the entire scenario and suddenly all three had title winning chances if they scored victories in the final 9th round on Saturday.
In the 9th round Carlsen was held to an early draw by Levon Aronian in 30 moves after a bout of heavy piece exchange.
Nakamura defeated Jon Ludwig Hammer to tie for second place with Carlsen after both tallied 5.5 points each. Anand, Aronian and Svidler followed next with 5 points each.
Sergey Karjakin and Veselin Topalov game also ended in a draw and was the lst one to finish for the day and this allowed Karjakin to win the title outright with a tally of 6 points.
In the English Opening Anand erred as early as the 16th turn with a wrong looking rook move. Wang Hao too did not capitalize on the mistake instantly. Anand nhowever was error prone and had to give up his queen for a rook and bishop on the 19th turn.
Thereafter Anand tried to get back into the game but Hao hung on grimly to his advantage and pocketed the point after 38 moves.
Ironically Wang Hao of China was trailing in the last two places for most part of the tournament produced his best in the last two rounds defeating the Challenger Carslen in the pen-ultimate round and the Reigning World Champion Anand in the final round.