Fabiano Caruana won the Zuerich Chess Classic 2013 alone on 4/6. In doing so has almost recovered all the rating points he lost in his uncharacteristically terrible performance in the Tata Steel tournament in January and guaranteed a speedy return to the top 10. Caruana defeated Boris Gelfand in a lengthy grind where he was putting the pressure on right from the opening phase. Gelfand didn't put up the strongest resistance in a difficult ending and 55...h4? just lost out of hand. Caruana also won the opening blitz tournament. A fine tournament victory for Caruana who is a relentlessly accurate, almost model player. Viswanathan Anand took second place alone after being gifted a win by Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik got slightly the better of a Berlin against Anand forcing 20.Rc6 which is a purely defensive idea. Kramnik could have taken a draw immediately with 20...Nxh3 instead he seems to have turned off momentarily and after 21...Qb8? he just lost decisive amounts of material. As Anand put it "You don't really expect a gift like this from Vlady." Final Standings: Fabiano Caruana 4pts/6, Viswanathan Anand 3pts, Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand 2.5pts.

Zurich Chess Challenge 2013 (6)

Mark Crowther (Fri Mar 1 19:46:00 2013)