Chess: Anand suffers shock defeat

SAO PAULO: In a rare loss, world champion Viswanathan Anand went down to Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the third round of the fourth Bilbao Final Masters. After two tough draws, Anand looked down and out as the world number six played out a perfect match to force the win. In another upset, world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway also suffered a defeat at the hands of low-ranked Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain. Carlsen and Anand are currently languishing at the bottom of the tables with just two points that came from two draws in the first two rounds.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th,  2011.