Chennai: Finally, the champion met the challenger to end the Tal chess tournament in Moscow on Friday. Boris Gelfand vs Vishy Anand should have been the cynosure naturally as they are scheduled to meet each other in the World championship match next year.
But it was a washout like all the Anand games in this tournament and the world champion returned a par score of 4.5 points for a joint third place. Levon Aronian of Armenia and Magnus Carlsen of Norway jointly won the tournament with 5.5 points each. Carlsen, as usual, made a last-round leap with a win over Hikaru Nakamura of US while Aronian had to be content with a draw against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.
Anand's 29-move draw with Gelfand came quite quickly in the Grunfeld defence. Simplification was a matter of formality and as the players reached a rook and same-coloured bishop ending with six pawns each, there was hardly anything on the board to fight for. Maybe, Gelfand's queenside pawns were more organised.
The Times Of india