Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in the seventh round of Norway’s chess blitz en route to a fourth-place finish. The former world champion, however, suffered defeats to Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) in the fourth and ninth rounds respectively to finish with 5 points in the 10-man blitz early on Tuesday.

The Indian general manager started with a victory over Aryan Tari (Norway) in the blitz before drawing with Wesley So in the second round. He posted a victory over veteran Veselin Topalov in the third round before sharing the point with Teimur Radjabov.

After a loss to Giri and a draw with Hao Wang (China), Anand picked up a win over Carlsen. However, the draw against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov followed by the loss to Vachier-Lagrave ended his chances of finishing high after starting with 2.5 points in the first three rounds.

Anand’s victory over Carlsen closely follows that of fellow countryman and teenage sensation R Praggnandhaa who recently beat the Norwegian world champion in an online blitz tournament.

American Wesley So finished top of the Blitz standings with 6.5 points, one ahead of Carlsen while Giri took third place. He thus won the right to choose his starting number for the classic event.

Promoted

All 10 players will play a classic event starting later on Tuesday.

Anand begins his campaign in the classic event with a match against Vachier-Lagrave.