Viswanathan Anand hailed on Twitter after incredible win against Fabio Caruana
In round three of the ongoing Tata Steel Masters taking place in the Netherlands, India's Viswanathan Anand defeated American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana to take his tally of the tournament to 2.5 points. He is now level with the Dutch GM Anish Giri at the top of the table after winning two games and getting a draw against Russia's Sergey Karjakin.
However, the win against Caruana was a special one that ended with an 'Rd6' move to which his opponent had no answer and prompted him to resign immediately after a total of 42 moves.
Its brilliance was hailed by players across the world, including reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who tweeted his excitement at Anand's brilliancy and said that the Madras Tiger has still got it.
In 2013, Anand lost his World Championship crown to Carlsen, which was the start of the apparent downfall of the Indian Grandmaster with the critics also pointing out his poor performances in subsequent tournaments. Many of his critics even asked him to retire him from the game.
After a string of poor outings in big tournaments, the 48-year-old bounced back in December last year as he won two medals at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Riyadh.
Many fans of the Indian grandmaster also tweeted praises for their hero after his win:
There were also several tweets from both sets of fans praising the Norweigan for putting the rivalries aside and acknowledging a brilliant move that was used by Anand to win the game.
Anand will next face the fellow Indian Adhiban Baskaran in the fourth round of the tournament and will look to go all the way to the title in the coming days. If his performance against Caruana is anything to by, he is certainly one of the favourites to lift the trophy!