(REOPENS FGN 2)

Anand opened with the Sicilian defense and repeated a line played in a famous 1999 game -- Kasparov versus the world. Naiditsch was the first to deviate from the game on his 14th turn and Anand sacrificed an exchange early in the opening in return for two pawns. Naiditsch went haywire after the exchange of queens and could not handle the complexities that remained. It seemed, at least from the speed with which Naiditsch was playing, that he had a draw worked out, but Anand thought his opponent, "really underestimated the position". "These rook endings are very, very tricky. You have to play them incredibly precisely," said Anand. As it happened, Naiditsch made the fatal error and had no chances in the pawn race, from the look of his face the Germany was shell shocked when he resigned. Anand reflected on his improved form this year, remarking that his last reasonably successful tournament was Wijk aan Zee 2011, where he finished clear second behind Hikaru Nakamura of United States. "After that basically I went over a cliff and the next five tournaments were pretty awful," he said. MORE