Viswanathan Anand suffers two defeats in a day at Global Chess League

Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand saw yet another bad day in the 2026 Global Chess League, having lost two games in a single day while playing for the Alaskan Knights. This came after an extremely tough Monday when he lost to World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen on time and then drew with Alireza Firouzja.

Viswanathan Anand’s time trouble proved costly against Javokhir Sindarov

More problems emerged on Tuesday when Viswanathan resigned against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Towards the evening, he went up against Javokhir Sindarov but was once again in trouble with time on the clock. Playing White, Viswanathan Anand had an edge in the game and thought that he was able to fight for the win. However, Javokhir proposed a draw by 43...Re4+. Anand refused to take the draw as he thought that Javokhir’s pieces were not well coordinated.

This move proved to be very costly in the end. Despite being able to extend the game, Viswanathan eventually ran out of time. In retrospect, Anand noted, “It’s just a comedy of errors. He offered a draw when he played 43...Re4+. But it seemed to me that his pieces had no coordination, so I tried to play for win.”

Anand also pointed to several mistakes in the final stages. He further explained, “And then, it’s madness. I think even at the very end, I must have had a draw, but I went with 70.Kxd4+. I already blundered allowing 73.Rf8...Rc4+, and I can’t take on B4." Asked what was going wrong, Viswanathan Anand could not offer a clear answer. “I don’t know. If I knew, I would do something,” he said.

Javokhir Sindarov was also critical of his own performance. He said,“Yeah, general happy with the performance but not happy with the game. But, I mean, in the opening, I played very well, but then, like, I made big mistake. I start thinking for five minutes to find the best moves, but in this time control, it’s always hard to find all the best moves."

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