ST LOUIS (USA), Aug 3: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw with nemesis Hikaru Nakamura of the United States to kickstart his campaign in the Sinquefield Cup, a part of the Grand Chess tour.
Among the chess elite, Nakamura has troubled Anand like no one else in classical chess in the past few years and the Indian decided not to go for the blood despite his white pieces. The end result was a rather dull draw.
For the records, it was the Anti-Berlin by Anand and Nakamura had little troubles in equalising. The American tried to make some headway in the centre but Anand gave nothing away and it was a balanced position when the two players decided to repeat and signed peace after 30 moves.
It was an otherwise lively start to the super tournament as the first round witnessed as many as three decisive games. The four Russian speaking Grandmasters were pitted against each other and that itself provided the major share of decisive results in the opener.
Sergey Karjakin was a class act against compatriot Peter Svidler, while Levon Aronian of Armenia continued with his excellent form to beat Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi.
French Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave landed a crushing blow to the aspirations of Wesley So of United States while the much followed game between American Fabiano Caruana and World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway ended in a draw. � PTI
