Yesterday was yet again one of those days when
exchampion Vishy Anand got the pieces working fine
together. In the 2nd round of the Zürich Chess Challenge
the exchampion had prepared an improvement in a
Grünfeld-line which he used against World Champion
Magnus Carlsen in their match in Sochi in November.
His Armenian opponent GM Levon Aronian struggled
to find good answers to the 12.Rd1-line which Anand
had prepared. Aronian got a bishop on f4, but Anand got
formidable compensation with active pieces and a passed
pawn on d7. Anand later got back the the piece as black
had to sacrifice back on the pawn on d7. Later he won
a piece as he picked up black`s Knight on a6. Aronian
called it a day after 28 moves.A really fine performance
by Anand bringing him up in joint lead with Nakamura
who drew Kramnik as black.The last game of the round
saw Karjakin battling it out with Caruana. The players
discussed the Berlin-defence (4.d3-variation). After
41 moves the players agreed upon a draw.The 3rd round
will be played today with the games Aronian-Kramnik,
Caruana-Anand and Nakamura-Karjakin. follow the
games live on ChessBomb from 3 p.m. (15.00).
From 11 a.m. you can follow the last two games in
the rapid match between the legends Korchnoi and
Uhlmann the same place.The match stands 1-1 after
both players won with white yesterday.
Read the report from yesterday`s games in Zürich
in ChessBase.
Photo:Eteri Kublashvili
