Baden-Baden: World Champion Vishwanathan Anand won his first classical tournament in almost five years after an enthralling final day’s play in Baden-Baden. It started fast with Anand and Arkadij Naiditsch blitzing out a rook ending that might have been drawn but ended in the German’s resignation on move 49. That left Fabiano Caruana needing to beat Fridman to force a play-off, but he missed a gilt-edged chance in what fittingly became the longest game of the tournament.
Final rounds are sometimes dull, but there was every reason to hope for action at the Grenke Chess Classic. No round had yet finished in three draws, and that was largely due to Arkadij Naiditsch’s seven decisive games in only nine rounds. He had the white pieces against Anand, and the players didn’t disappoint.
Afterwards Anand reflected on his improved form this year, remarking that his last reasonably successful tournament before 2013 was Wijk aan Zee 2011, where he finished clear second behind Nakamura on +4. “After that basically I went over a cliff and the next five tournaments were pretty awful”. Wijk aan Zee this year also went well until the last round, with the champion commenting, “I was hoping I wouldn’t do a Wang Hao today!”
Anand added later in the press centre: “Since 2011 my big problem had been getting interesting positions where I had chances. This year the new problem has been exploiting those chances – against Fridman here, Hou Yifan in Wijk aan Zee or last year against Nakamura and Adams at the London Chess Classic I’ve been gifting people half points. If it wasn’t for that my results would be much better. Still, it’s a hundred times better to have the second problem! I need to work on my technique.”
The other game of the final round between Michael Adams of England and Georg Meier of Germany also ended in a draw.The much-needed tournament victory for Anand came after a long time and it could serve as a perfect prelude to the World Championship match he is slated to play later this year.
The Indian finished with 6.5 points in all and ended half a point ahead of Caruana.
Caruana cut a disconsolate figure after the game, but retained his objectivity. Although his result couldn’t be called bad – he actually gained rating points – he was unhappy with his overall play and felt that his form had finally come back to haunt him in the last two games.
So World Champion Viswanathan Anand remained undefeated and took clear first at the inaugural GRENKE Chess Classic.
The final standings were:
1. Anand: 6.5
2. Caruana: 6
3. Meier: 5 (2 wins)
4. Adams: 5 (1 win)
5. Naiditsch: 4
6. Fridman: 3.5
