Viswanathan Anand triumphs in Champions Showdown

The Champions Showdown comprised six Classical, six rapid and 12 blitz games. Anand, who shared the lead after the Classical games, took sole lead with eight points from 12 games after the Rapid section, 1.5 points ehead of Hikaru Nakamura of US. Then Anand came into his own in the blitz, Anand scored seven points from 12 games. 

Hikaru Nakamura entered the day 1.5 points behind and kept his chances to catch up with Anand for most of the day. However, a few crucial losses to Fabiano Caruana left Nakamura in clear second place with 14/24. Caruana did quite well compared to his previous performance in the event, earning third place with 11/24. 

Meanwhile, Veselin Topalov simply could not keep up, scoring just three points on the day and finishing with 8/24.Nakamura started the day with wins over Caruana and Topalov while Anand made a few draws. This allowed Hikaru to close the gap and be just a half-point behind Anand. But the Indian beat Nakamura, Topalov and Caruana in the next blitz games to steer clear of Nakamura in the end. There was no doubt that the most consistent player at Saint Louis was five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand. 

After the Classical games ended on Sunday, there was a double round-robin in rapid, with a time control of fifteen minutes with a five-second delay. Following Anand, a very topsy-turvy Hikaru Nakamura stood at clear second with 6.5/12, while Veselin Topalov (5.0/12) and Fabiano Caruana (4.5/12) were all well behind. The tournament had a prize fund of $150,000.