Viswanathan Anand suffered a surprise defeat with white pieces against Vladimir Kramnik in the seventh round of Tata Steel chess tournament on Saturday.
In Guico Piano, Anand made a series of moves of sub-optimal strength and was duly punished by Kramnik in 36 moves.
Before Anand’s first defeat, overnight leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (5.5 points) whipped Wei Yi to enlarge his lead to one-point.
In the battle between the strongest male and lady players on the planet, Magnus Carlsen defeated Hou Yifan to move to the joint second spot with Anish Giri, Kramnik and Wesley So at 4.5 points.
Anand (4), overnight in the joint second spot, has now tied-sixth with Sergey Karjakin, who dumped second seed Fabiano Caruana.
B. Adhiban, following his shattering loss to Mamedyarov on Friday night, battled hard to hold Russian Maxim Matlakov in 53 moves. In the Challengers section, Vidit Gujrathi once again drew, this time against local Lucas van Foreest before D. Harika missed a possible draw and eventually lost to German Matthias Bluebaum in 58 moves.
The results (seventh round):
Masters: Viswanathan Anand (4) lost to Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 4.5);
Maxim Matlakov (Rus, 3.5) drew with B. Adhiban (1.5); Shakhriyar
Mamedyarov (Aze, 5.5) bt Wei Yi (Chn, 2.5); Wesley So (USA, 4.5) drew
with Anish Giri (Ned, 4.5); Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 4) bt Fabiano
Caruana (USA, 2); Gawain Jones (Eng, 3.5) drew with Peter Svidler
(Rus, 3.5); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 4.5) bt Hou Yifan (Chn, 1).
Challengers: Vidit Gujrathi (5) drew with Lucas van Foreest (Ned, 4);
D. Harika (2.5) lost to Matthias Bluebaum (Ger, 3.5); Michal Krasnekow
(Pol, 3) drew with Anton Korobov (Ukr, 6); Bassem Amin (Egy, 3) drew
with Jeffery Xiong (USA, 3); Aryan Tari (Nor, 3.5) bt Olga Girya (Rus,
2.5); Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 3) drew with Benjamin Bok (Ned, 3);
Erwin L’Ami (Ned, 3.5) drew with Dmitry Gordievsky (Ned, 3.5).