Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand from India defeated Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in the first game of their four-game match.
Anand, who had the white pieces, took 66 moves to defeat Kramnik in the first official game of ‘No-Castling’ devised by the Russian Grandmaster himself. In this variant of chess, the players are not allowed to castle. The idea behind this is to make the game less theoretical and more dynamic.
Last week, Anand defeated his old rival Russian Grandmaster Garry Kasparov in the Croatia Grand Chess Tour Tournament at Zagreb. It turned out to be a horrible tournament for the 58 year old Kasparov who rarely made an appearance before a chessboard after retiring in 2005.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave popularly called MVL from France, won the tournament with a standing of 23 points, while Anand gained 21 points.
Anand who played this event after a gap of 16 months, played extremely well against much younger rivals to claim the second place.
