Vishwanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik draw at London Chess Classic

Viswanathan Anand opened with a draw against Vladimir Kramnik in Round 1 of 2014 London Chess Classic.

Aat the Olympia Conference Centre in Kensington, London, Kramnik and Anand played near flawless chess to reach a draw in 45 moves. Despite the scattered pawns and active pieces, there was little that Kramnik or Anand could do to force a win in this complicated game.

After the match, Vishwanathan Anand revealed that he looked down this line in preparation for his 2008 World Championship clash with Kramnik and he was trying to reconstruct his preparation. The Indian Grandaster was able to accurately recall that this line was played in another chess games and he felt comfortable playing the odd moves to secure the draw.

Remarkably, Anand had nearly an hour left, 58 minutes and 1 second, on his clock when the duo agreed to the draw.

In other games, Michael Adams, the lowest ranked player in the competition, provided the sole decisive result with a win over the highest rated player in the field, Fabiano Caruana. Adams blundered a piece early on in the game but showed great tenacity to fight back and secure a historic win.

Anand takes on Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri plays Mickey Adams and Vladimir Kramnik clashes with Hikaru Nakamura in round 2.

Results – Round 1:

Vladimir Krambik 0.5 – 0.5 Viswanathan Anand

Michael Adams 1 – 0 Fabiana Caruana

Hikaru Nakamura 0.5 – 0.5 Anish Giri