GM Larry Christiansen recaps Round 2. Happy Birthday to the great Vishy Anand! Today Vishy decided he wanted to celebrate his 45th birthday without having to sit 6 hours in front of his much younger opponent, Italian Fabiano Caruana, who was nice enough to allow the tiger to get a GM-draw in 17 moves. The other two games, on the contrary, were very hard-fought battles. Giri, showing a rather mature technique, defeated the round 1 matador, local hero Michael Adams. Kramnik played a slightly unusual system in the Kings-Indian, and came out of the opening with a solid position. The Russian was able to convert his advantage and defeat Hikaru Nakamura. With the football score system - 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw - the standings can change quite dramatically in just one round: now Kramnik and Giri lead with 4 points, followed by Michael Adams with 3 points; Anand 2 points and the duo Nakamura-Caruana 1 point.

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