Anand finishes with draw at Candidates chess tourney

Moscow, March 29: Former world champion Viswanathan Anand signed off his campaign at the Candidates chess tournament with a draw against Peter Svidler of Russia here on Tuesday.

Playing with black pieces in the final round, Anand did not face too many difficulties from his Russian opponent as he picked up half a point from the comfortable draw to finish third in the event.

At the top of the table, Sergey Karjakin of Russia defeated Fabiano Caruana of the United States to win the tournament by a margin of one point and emerge as the new challenger for the next World Championship match. Karjakin notched up a total of 8.5 points out of a possible 14. 

The Russian will face Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the next World Championship match to be held in the US in November. Playing with black pieces, Caruana took a few calculated risks, but a brilliant rook sacrifice by Karjakin sealed the victory.

Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler tied for the fourth position with seven points each.