Coming into the final day of the Tal Memorial , Indian GM Vishwanathan Anand shared the lead along with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov with 4 points out of a possible. Two players: Kramnik and Grischuk were close behind on with 3.5/6.
But Anand won a way to keep his head and grab the title with some solid chess. A win against against Hikaru Nakamura in the sixth round had got Anand back in and he continued his good run on the final day with a vital win over Alexander Grischuk in the eighth round.
As luck would have it, Mamedyarov lost to Daniil Dubov in the 8th round as well and that is all that was needed to decide the title.
Anand had only one loss in the tournament – losing to Mamedyarov in the third round. But he also racked up four outright wins and that is big for a tournament in which the average rating was 2757.
The Candidates tournament is about to begin in a week, yet four of them are playing here: Kramnik, Karjakin, Mamedyarov and Grischuk. The win comes soon after Anand’s World Rapid title and will give his confidence another big boost.
The Tal Memorial Rapid is a 10-player single round-robin taking place in the Museum of Russian Impressionism in Moscow. The ten top players were competing for a $130,000 prize fund, with $25,000 for 1st place.