Sinquefield Cup: Viswanathan Anand plays out another draw against Peter Svidler

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand played out another draw with Peter Svidler of Russia in the second round of the Sinquefield Cup. Playing black for the first time in the tournament, Anand was up against an English opening that got transposed to the Queen pawn game against Svidler.

Anand holds an excellent record against Svidler but the Russian was simply too cautious having lost the first round of the tournament. The pieces changed hands at regular intervals and the truce was signed on move 31. This was just one more than Anand’s previous round draw with Hikaru Nakamura of United States.

Yet again it turned out to be an exciting day with three decisive games for the second day running, only the winners were different than the first round. World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway scored his first victory at the expense of his last world championship challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia, while Fabiano Caruana of United States put up a sterling show in the endgame to outwit Levon Aronian of Armenia and American Wesley So crashed through the defences of Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France was the lone winner of the first round to survive the day unscathed as …read more