Viswanathan Anand defeats Garry Kasparov in 30 moves in Croatia Grand Chess Tour

Indian Grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand yet again proved that 'winning is a habit' when he took out Russian Grandmaster, Garry Kasparov during the Croatia Grand Chess Tournament on Saturday. Five-time world champion, Anand who played for the first time after a gap of 17 months did not ever let his opponent undervalue his potential as it took him only a matter of half an hour in the fourth round to breeze past his Russian counterpart. 

Vishwanathan Anand's stats in Zagreb Rapid and Blitz, Croatia

Playing with white, it took just 30 moves for Anand to dominate Kasparov. However, it was not all smooth sailing for the Indian Grandmaster as Dutch GM Anish Giri proved victorious in the very first match. But Anand's bounce-back was even stronger as he took down Jan Kryzstof Duda. He then went on to share points with French GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave in the third round. Anand was also successful in dominating Dutch GM Jorden van Foreest on his comeback to competitive chess. Ian Nepomniachtchi was however successful in defeating the Indian Grandmaster with a fraction of a difference of 4.5/5 who managed to maintain his first place.

"I basically lost two normal points with two big blunders, against Shakh and Maxime. So first of all, I tried to stop blundering and pull myself together. In general, I don't think I played too good, but it was enough to change the flow and score some wins," chess.com quoted Nepomniachtchi as saying.

The former world champion ended up at the seventh spot after the Rapid section with nine points, posting a tally of two wins and two losses while sharing points with his opponent on 5 separate occasions.

2021 Croatia Grand Chess Tour

Croatia Grand Chess Tour will be the second Rapid and Blitz event and third stop on the 2021 Grand Chess tournament. Previously in 2019, Croatia Grand Chess Tour featured all 12 tour participants competing in classical formats while this year's event would only host ten elite GM's competing over nine rounds of rapid chess and 18 rounds of Bitz chess. The total prize amount of this competitive tournament is staked at $ 150,000 with the first prize at an impressive $ 37,500. 

The Zagreb and Blitz are being staged from July 7 to July 11 in Zagreb, Croatia.

Image Credits - AP