Anand gears up for Svidler encounter

Placed comfortably on top of the table with a half point lead, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand will enter the crucial phase of the Candidates chess tournament, taking on Peter Svidler after the second rest day.

Placed comfortably on top of the table with a half point lead, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand will enter the crucial phase of the Candidates chess tournament, taking on Peter Svidler after the second rest day.

From a great beginning to some cautious play, Anand, with four points in his bag from six games, enjoys a half point lead over nearest contender Levon Aronian of Armenia.

It’s a closely matched field as almost everyone except the lowest seed Dmitry Andreikin of Russia seems to be in the race to be world champion Magnus Carlsen’s challenger.

The eight-player double round-robin tournament has seen a lot of excitement and there are no clear favourites as yet but surely Anand has an edge thanks to his half point cushion.

The stakes are high as apart from a match against Carlsen, the winner will take home 1,35,000 Euros as cash prize.

The Russian duo of Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan follow Aronian a half point behind on three points apiece and they all have reasons to fancy their chances as the tournament nears the completion of the first half.

Not far behind is Sergey Karjakin on 2.5 points who can not only play the spoiler but also has it in him to pull a few victories to match leaders.