After spending more than six hours at the chess board on Monday, top chess rivals Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Vishy Anand of India only played for around two hours on Tuesday before calling it a draw. Commentators claimed Carlsen had “full control” before the two agreed on remis.
Both were clearly tired after Tuesday’s marathon match, with Carlsen visibly yawning and closing his eyes at one point early in the game. Anand reportedly realized that “enough was enough” after 41 moves. He reached out his hand, thanked Carlsen for the match and settled on remis.
“I didn’t get much out of this one today,” Anand admitted at the press conference following the match, but noted there were still more matches ahead, and thus more opportunities.
The score stood at 4.5 for Carlsen and 3.5 for Anand as the two battle to be the first to achieve 6.5 points and thus win this year’s Chess World Championship. Anand had been world champ for several years, but Carlsen won the title away from his last year. Anand is battling to get it back.
“This was probably a boring match for the public, but a good result for Magnus,” Carlsen’s manager, Espen Agdestein, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). Play resume on Thursday.
newsinenglish.no staff