The Week in Chess

Viswanathan Anand was looking forward to playing a lot of chess in 2015 after he finished the year with a win in the London Chess Classic. He felt his chess form, even in losing to Carlsen, was the best it has been for some time.

Viswanathan Anand defeated Michael Adams in a Berlin Defence with black to win the 6th London Chess Classic on tie-break. Anand had seemed under pressure with computers giving Adams a nice edge out of the opening. 16.c4 and 17.Rd3 are suggested improvements. After 24...b5 Anand's problems were over and Adams had the harder position to play. 28.e6 seems to have been an error and Anand quickly developed an initiative in the knight and pawn ending and won. Adams had good positions in all the game he played but his heavy cold seems to have really affected his play.

Vladimir Kramnik seemed to know more than Anish Giri on the black side of a Catalan and put white under severe pressure but Giri after a rather wild lash out with 26.e4 (in "disgust" at his position) then defended very well and just held the draw. The draw meant allowed Anand to catch them and by virtue of winning the only game with black Anand took the title on tie-break. This ends a period since the start of November where Kramnik has played 60 games at many different time controls including 7 against his opponent today. Kramnik said he was looking forward to a rest and playing in Zuerich in February.

The last game to finish was another complicated Berlin Defence between Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. At one point Nakamura thought he was checkmating Caruana but missed a simple way out for his opponent. In the end the game was drawn.

Final Standings: 1st Anand 7pts (1 win with black), 2nd Kramnik and Giri (tiebreaks equal) 7pts 4th Nakamura 6pts, 5th Adams 4pts (1 win), 6th Caruana 4pts (no wins).

Gawain Jones takes a one point lead against Romain Edouard into the final game of their match at the start of the Hampstead Chess Congress after another draw in game 5.