In joint fifth spot after five draws, corld champion Viswanathan Anand will take on Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the sixth round of the Tal Memorial International chess tournament.
With the next World Championship match against Boris Gelfand on his mind, Anand has not been at his best. But, despite his mediocre result, the Indian ace is just half a point behind the leading group.
Except in the game against Levon Aronian of Armenia, Anand has not had tough positions to contend and while there have not been very sharp or complicated battles; he has been holding his fort with consummate ease.
After the black game against Ivanchuk, Anand will have two back-to-back white games against World No 1 Magnus Casrlsen of Norway and Garry Kasparov's latest protege Hikaru Nakamura of United States.
Humpy loses in round two of world chess
Tirana (Albania): Victory continues to elude grandmaster Koneru Humpy who suffered her second defeat in six games today against defending champion Yifan Hou of China in Women's World Chess Championship here.
With two losses and four draws so far in the 10-game contest, the Indian is trailing Yifan 2-4. And now with just four games to go, Yifan has a two-point lead to her credit and Humpy have to come out firing all cylinders to stand a chance of a comeback.
The fortunes of the Indian did not change as Yifan yet again capitalised on an erroneous plan and went on to record her second win in the match. What turned out to be worse for Humpy is the fact that Yifan had spent several hours in the hospital the previous night of the match and yet won. The 17-year-old experienced severe pains in her stomach and was immediately hospitalized.
{{/usCountry}}The fortunes of the Indian did not change as Yifan yet again capitalised on an erroneous plan and went on to record her second win in the match. What turned out to be worse for Humpy is the fact that Yifan had spent several hours in the hospital the previous night of the match and yet won. The 17-year-old experienced severe pains in her stomach and was immediately hospitalized.
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