Saturday, March 7, 2009

Linares round 13: No grandslam for Anand; Ivanchuk, close to winning his fourth

In the penultimate round of the Linares Super GM tournament, Alexander Grischuk caught the world champion Vishy Anand off guard by his "novelty" but somehow the Indian GM managed to find a way to escape with a draw. With the result, Anand can finally kiss his hopes goodbye of being the only players in history to win the event for three consecutive years. Other interesting match up saw Ivanchuk defeated the skidding Levon Aronian to join Grischuk in the lead with 7.5 points, half a point ahead of Carlsen with 7.0. Ivanchuk is the three time winner of Linares, the last time and most probably not the last he got hold of the coveted throphy was on 1995 a full point ahead of Anatoly Karpov.

I've just noticed this; Anand and Ivanchuk are both 39 years old (Ivanchuk will turn 40 later this month) but physical comparison suggest that Anand looks very fresh like he's still in his late twenties and Ivanchuk, looks totally worn out and he looks like he's already in his late fifties. Something to do with traditional Indian spiritual connection and strong family bond which Ivanchuk is struggling for most of his life?

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