Anand beats Carlsen, leaps to No 1 in live ratings

World champion Viswanathan Anand defeated Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and jumped to the top spot in the unofficial live ratings after the end of the second round in the ongoing Bilbao Final Masters chess tournament in Bilbao, Spain, on Sunday.

The Indian chess ace cashed in on his chances with black pieces to take over the top ranking in live ratings.

Carlsen had arrived for the tournament as the number one chess player.

After the victory over Carlsen, Anand, with one win and one draw, is just two points behind the Russian Vladimir Kramnik, who is in sole lead on six points after defeating Alexei Shirov of Spain in the category-22 tournament that has a football-like scoring system.

Shirov is a long-way third with just one point that he earned after drawing with Anand in the opener.

Surprisingly, Magnus Carlsen is in the cellar and yet to open his account with four rounds still to come. He had a forgettable show in the just-concluded chess Olympiad and in Bilbao too his fortunes don't seem to be changing after a first round loss to Kramnik.

Playing the black side of a Berlin defence for the second day running, Anand faced the closed Ruy Lopez set-up that is in vogue, thanks to the efforts of Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia among others.

Anand's home work, however, yet again came good as Carlsen was not able to get anything worthwhile after the opening and once the queens were off the board, the experts predicted a draw as it was difficult for either side to make any great progress.

However, Carlsen had other ideas as he went haywire with his planning. In the post game conference the G-Star model confessed that he evaluated that after his 31st move 'everything was a dead draw' and thought 'why not make a draw this way'.

This line of thinking proved costly as Carlsen went wrong on the 33rd move and a further mistake sealed his fate quickly. Anand took the point home after 45 moves.

Kramnik was pleasantly surprised to face the Slav defense by Shirov, who was outplayed after making a simple opening mistake. Trying to exchange quickly to equalise, the Spaniard did not quite find the right path and lost an exchange in the middle game to never recover again. The game lasted 41 moves.

The next round will be Anand's first white in the tournament and he will face leader Kramnik. A victory will give Anand sole lead while a draw will help Kramnik's position at the helm.

Results round 2: Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 0) lost to V Anand (Ind, 4); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 6) beat Alexei Shirov (Esp, 1).

The moves: Magnus Carlsen vs V Anand

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 d6 5. O-O Be7 6. c3 O-O 7. Nbd2 Bd7 8. Re1 Re8 9. Nf1 Bf8 10. Ba4 h6 11. Ng3 Ne7 12. Bb3 Ng6 13. d4 c5 14. h3 Qc7 15. a4 a6 16. a5 cxd4 17. cxd4 exd4 18. Nxd4 d5 19. exd5 Rxe1+ 20. Qxe1 Re8 21. Qc3 Qxc3 22. bxc3 Re1+ 23. Kh2 Bd6 24. Nc2 Rf1 25. Be3 Rxa1 26. Nxa1 Be5 27. Bd4 Bxd4 28. cxd4 Ne7 29. Nc2 Nfxd5 30. Ne4 b6 31. Ne3 Nxe3 32. axb6 N3f5 33. Nc5 Nxd4 34. b7 Nec6 35. Ba4 Be8 36. Nxa6 Kf8 37. Kg3 Ke7 38. Kf4 Ne6+ 39. Ke3 Ned8 40. Bxc6 Nxc6 41. h4 Kd6 42. g4 Bd7 43. g5 hxg5 44. hxg5 g6 45. f4 Be6 white resigned.