Nice, March 22: World champion Viswanathan
Anand defeated Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine 1.5-0.5 to jump into
joint lead after the seventh round of the Amber Blindfold and
Rapid chess tournament here today.
The Indian ace shares the top spot with Vladimir Kramnik
of Russia who accounted for overnight leader Levon Aronian of
Armenia 1.5-0.5.
Both Anand and Kramnik have identical nine points from 14
games played thus far and are now half point clear of Aronian
and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who scored a 2-0 victory over
Chinese Wang Yue.
With four rounds (eight games) remaining, Peter Leko of
Hungary is now a distant fifth on 7.5 points, half point clear
of Gata Kamsky of the United States, Alexander Morozevich of
Russia and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.
Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan stands sole ninth on six
points while Ukrainian duo of Vassily Ivanchuk and Karjakin
are joint 10th on five points. Yue is at the bottom of the
pile with 4.5 points in his bag.
In the blindfold section, Carlsen emerged as the new
leader with a tally of 5.5 points. The Norwegian is half point
ahead of Kramnik while Anand shares the third spot alongwith
Leko on 4.5 points.
Kamsky, who is in tied ninth spot in blindfold, is the
surprise leader in rapid section with 5 points. Anand shares
the second spot with Aronian on 4.5 points.
Anand employed the Caro Kann defence against Karjakin
that netted him the full point in the blindfold game.
Interestingly, both Karjakin and Anand spent some time
studying the line of Advanced Variation of the Caro Kann that
they got on the board, but the difference was that the
Ukrainian missed a few details that worked to Anand's
advantage.
"With the best defence you probably can hold but it's
blindfold and your clock is ticking," Anand said after the
game.
As it happened Karjakin erred with white on the 26th turn
which cost him a pawn and caused irreparable damage.
The rapid game between the two was a highly complicated
one in the Sicilian Najdorf that Karjakin employed as black.
The early proceedings looked better for Anand, but it remained
unclear whether it was enough to press for a win.
The Ukrainian came under pressure and gave his queen for
rook and bishop in the middle game. The game remained tense
and after a fierce struggle the result after 61 moves was a
draw.
Kramnik and Aronian shared the honours in the blindfold
game but the Russian won the rapid to move into joint lead.
"It was not a good game, we both blundered a lot,"
Kramnik said after the match.
In other matches of the day, Ivanchuk played out two
draws with Topalov, Leko drew the blindfold and won the rapid
game against Morozevich while Kamsky and Radjabov shared one
win each.
Bureau Report