Anand starts Sinquefield Cup campaign with draw vs Nakamura

ST. LOUIS: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand got off to a good start holding USA’s Hikaru Nakmura to an easy draw in the first round of the Sinquefield Cup, a part of the Grand Chess tour, here.

After a rather forgettable outing in the rapid and blitz event where he finished last, Anand did not give any chance to Nakamura out of a Queen’s gambit declined.

The pieces changed hands at regular intervals as Anand equalised with a typical central breakthrough in the middle game and the players arrived at a drawn queen and pawns endgame in quick time where the peace was a just result.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan got off to a flier cruising past Wesley So of the US.

In the other decisive game of the day, Levon Aronian of Armenia came up with a brilliant endgame show to beat Sergey Karjakin of Russia.

The other two games in the tenplayer round-robin tournament ended in draws as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave split the point with world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and USA’s Fabiano Caruana could not make much headway against Alexander Grischuk of Russia.

With eight rounds still remaining in the 300000 USD prize money tournament, Mamedyarov and Aronian emerged as early leaders with one point each, while Anand remains a point behind.

NATIONAL RACING

CHENNAI: Bengaluru schoolboy Yash Aradhya stole the show, winning his maiden race in the MRF F1600 class in the fourth round of the MRF-MMSC FMSCI National Racing Championship. Aradhya, who celebrated his 17th birthday recently, started the third race from third position on the grid, but within two laps, hit the front. After the weekend’s triple-header, Raghul Rangasamy leads the MRF F1600 championship with 134 points, ahead of Parekh (129), Ashwin Datta (110) and Sandeep Kumar (109). The winner of the championship will earn a ticket to the Mazda Road To Indy Shootout in the US.