Viswanathan Anand’s campaign in the Norway Chess 2018 got off to a sedate start as the former world champion was held to a quick draw by Levon Aronian in the opening round.
The 48-year-old Indian, who is playing one of the strongest Grandmaster tournament as the lowest ranked player, could not find a way past Aronian’s defence in the Ruy Lopez Berlin defence opening and had to split points through repetition in a rook-rook ending.
World champion Magnus Carlsen was the only player in this 10-player round-robin event to register a win on the opening day as he got the better of USA’s Fabiano Caruana, the man he will face in the World Championship title match in London in November this year.
Carlsen opted for the rarely used Elephant’s Gambit opening and forced Caruana to resign after 77 moves in a queen-queen end game.
This is a tough tournament with as the only top 10 players missing are Vladimir Kramnik and Anish Giri, while the bottom seeds are none other than defending champion Levon Aronian and 5-time World Champion Vishy Anand.