Rude awakening for Viswanathan Anand

CHENNAI: As Boris Gelfand marched forward in the Candidates cycle five months ago, an eager Viswanathan Anand followed his results closely from Chennai and even mentioned that age is not at all a factor when it comes to doing well in top-flight chess.
Gelfand, two years older than Anand, went on to become the world champion's challenger making way for two well-rounded chess personalities to fight for the title."I think he is in the best form now," Anand told TOI then.
Not surprisingly, another veteran from the same era, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine tested Anand to the limit in Sao Paulo in the Grand Slam Masters in the third round on Thursday and took away a point that was worth three, in fact, in the football-like scoring system.
It may be recalled Ivanchuk never fulfilled the early promise he showed, like Boris Gelfand, who used to torment Anand in the 1990s. It is amazing that the trio that was expected to take over from Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov is peaking around the same time, though a bit late in respect of age.
Anand and Carlsen are at the bottom of the table in Sao Paulo with two rounds to go in the Brazilian leg of the Masters but it is certainly not the end of the world for the Indian.
He is used to similar situations. In the Mobiltel Masters in 2005 in Sofia, after the sixth round, both Topalov and Anand, the top two players in the world shared the last places.
By the end, they finished first and second respectively. Again in 2007, at Morelia-Linares, both Topalov and Anand, one and two at the time, both lost in the fifth round and Anand won the event a full point ahead of the field.
It may be difficult for Anand and Carlsen to take the lead in Sao Paulo but by the time they finish the 10-round event in Bilbao, they could turn the tide.
Anand's case is slightly different as he is already in his preparation for Gelfand; he was training in Europe for a month, so it is quite possible that he is consciously shelving some of his opening preparations.
And the rude awakening that he got from Ivanchuk in a rarely-played gambit line in the Spanish opening could stand him in good stead in his trial against Gelfand.
Fourth-round pairings at Sao Paulo: Vallejo Pons vs Anand; Carlsen vs Nakamura; Aronian vs Ivanchuk.