Anand loses to Nakamura

World champion Viswanathan Anand, playing black, suffered a defeat at the hands of Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the fourth round of the London Chess Classic here on Monday. It was the Indian’s sixth loss against the American in classical chess.

Nakamura moved to the leader’s pack following another draw-marred day that produced just one decisive game. Out of the 20 games played so far in the Classic, only three have ended decisively.

Three share lead

The Netherlands’ Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Nakamura share the top spot on 2.5 points in the $30,000 prize money tournament.

With five rounds still to come, Anand has slipped to ninth spot in the 10-player round-robin event but is only a full point behind the leading pack.

Nakamura obtained a slight advantage out of a Catalan opening and Anand’s pawn sacrifice did not yield desired compensation although his position remained playable for a long time.

Once Anand’s queen got stuck on the edge of the board, the Indian could only exchange it but the resulting endgame was simply much worse. The game lasted 42 moves.

'Always find a way'

Speaking about the game and his victories against Anand, Nakamura said: “I don’t think my style is that much different from Vishy’s but I seem to find a way against him.”

The results (fourth round):

Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2.5) bt V. Anand (Ind, 1.5), Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2) drew with Michael Adams (Eng, 2), Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 2), Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 2) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 2.5), Veselin Topalov (Bul, 1) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2).