Anand shocked by Giri in Bilbao meet

Defending champion Viswanathan Anand suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri in the fourth round of the Bilbao Masters final chess tournament here.

After three draws coming under different circumstances, Anand suffered a typical case of chess blindness and his opening blunder cost him dearly against Giri who used the opportunity well. For the records, this was Anand’s first loss against Giri in Classical chess. Riding on his victory, Giri joined overnight leader Wesley So of United States in lead on six points under the soccer-like scoring system that gives three points for a victory and one for a draw. 

Wesley So played out a hard-fought draw with Liren Ding of China who now shares the third spot with Anand on three points with two rounds still to come in the four-players double round-robin tournament. The players arrived at a rooks and minor piece endgame wherein Wesley got the draw through repetition. The game lasted 53 moves. With just two rounds to come, Anand has one white game against Wesley while against Ding the Indian will play black.