With his second loss in three days, Anand remained on 4 points from his eight games and his chances of a victory here were almost blown away as Topalov shot two points ahead of him with just five rounds to come in the first super tournament of the year.

The Indian now has a daunting task ahead of him in the remaining five games as he will have to score too heavily. For now, it seems that the race is between Topalov and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan who was leading the fray on 5.5 points at the start of this round.

It was simply a disastrous outing for Anand as he apparently blundered in the early middle game itself against Topalov. Playing the black side of a Queen's Indian defense, the Indian faced an in-vogue variation and misjudged a tactical sequence of moves that gave Topalov two pieces for a rook with a huge positional advantage.

The Bulgarian converted his advantage in quick time as this was the first game to end in the day.

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