Anand posts second win, takes lead

Stavanger, June 2

Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand posted his second win on the trot, defeating Bulgarian Veselin Topalov to take the lead in the classical section at the Norway Chess tournament here.

The 52-year-old Indian trumped his opponent in 36 moves in a battle of the veterans to make it two out of two after the second round late on Wednesday.

The five-time world champion now leads with six points.

He had started the classical event with a win over France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, following a fourth-place finish in the blitz event.

American Wesley So, who won the blitz event, outwitted world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the Armageddon (sudden death game) to lie second after their regular game ended in a 38-move draw.

Anand, who had defeated Carlsen in the blitz event, continued his good run. With this win, the Indian ace climbed to the 9th spot in the world live rating list.

In the other games, Vachier-Lagrave beat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov via Armageddon and Teimour Radjabov got the better of Norwegian GM Aryan Tari.

Dutch GM Anish Giri and Wang Hao drew their Armageddon game after the regular match ended in a draw.