London Classic | 8 January 2015

The key feature of the London Classic, which finished shortly before Christmas, was the resurgence of Viswanathan Anand, the former world champion. One might have expected him to be demoralised after his second drubbing at the hands of Magnus Carlsen, but he played steadily and his single victory, without loss, sufficed to share first prize and win the trophy on tie-break. The tie-break method centred on rewarding victory with the black pieces. The wins by Giri and Kramnik were both with White, while Anand defeated Adams with Black. The final scores (on the 3-1-0 system) were: Anand, Kramnik and Giri 7; Nakamura 6; Adams and Caruana 4.

Also notable was the continuing poor form of Fabiano Caruana, whom I eulogised in last week’s column. It seems to me that Caruana is tiring himself by competing in too many tournaments and that he should take a rest from international competitions before making his push for the world title.