Viswanathan Anand defeats Vladimir Kramnik in No-Castling Chess

Dortmund [Germany], July 15 (ANI): Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand registered a win over Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in the first game of their four-game match on Wednesday.
Playing with white pieces, Anand took 66 moves to beat Kramnik in what is the first official game of "No-Castling" Chess devised by the Russian Grandmaster himself.
In this variant, which was used recently to test Alpha Zero further, castling is not allowed.
Last week, Anand defeated Russian Grandmaster Garry Kasparov in the Croatia Grand Chess Tour tournament.
The Indian Grandmaster, however, faced a defeat at the hands of Ian Nepomniachtchi. The Russian had a slow start, with losses to Mamedyarov and MVL in rounds 11 and 13. By finishing with 4.5/5, Nepomniachtchi managed to keep his sole first place after all.
The Zagreb Rapid and Blitz was staged from July 7 to 11 in Zagreb, Croatia. The time control in the rapid was 25 minutes for each player with a 10-second increment per move, starting from move one.
The time control in the blitz was five minutes for each player with a two-second increment per move, starting from move one. The rapid counts double for the final standings.
The tournament was the third leg of the Grand Chess Tour and has a USD 150,000 prize fund with the first prize of USD 37,500. (ANI)