Russia cemented its ascent and influence in chess last week, after more than a decade by realizing a challenger for the approaching November world chess championship title match. Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin emerged victorious in the 14-round double round-robin 2016 Candidates contest and thereby qualified as the accredited challenger for Norway’s world champion Magnus Carlsen. Karjakin led for most of the competition until a fog of uncertainty descended on a settled winner.
Things begun to get hazy in the eleventh round when Vishy Anand seemingly thwarted Karjakin’s intentions of moving further ahead in the tournament by beating him with vivacity in a 70 move Ruy Lopez game. It stimulated Kasparov to say “Anand simply outclassed Karjakin.” The ending turned out to be the finest endgame of the competition, a work of art for the Indian grandmaster. Anand snatched the lead temporarily bringing satisfaction to a cool one billion chess fans in India alone, sharing it with the American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, but enjoying it only for a day. In the twelfth round, Karjakin was back on top with his defeat of Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov. Anand lost to Nakamura. In the final 14th round shootout game, Karjakin and Caruana clashed in a