Anand off to victorious start

By Arvind Aaron

DORTMUND, JULY 8. Viswanathan Anand was off to a victorious start when he recovered from a difficult position to defeat FIDE World champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia in the opening round of the 28th Dortmund chess days category 19 tournament here on Friday.

As expected, favourites with the white pieces had a field day winning four of the five encounters. The last encounter between Evgeny Bareev of Russia and the computer programme Junior6 ended in a draw.

Khalifman went for the French defence, possibly hoping to find a dent in Anand's strategy in their Linares game. He played the Winawer variation and chose an obscure line on fifth move. White had wiped off black's king side pawns in the opening and black had done the same to white's queen side.

The 14th move by Khalifman was an improvement over their Linares game and new. It assured black a comfortable position. In playing for a victory, white was in trouble.

The game turned tactical with an assurance of a decisive result coming, largely due to pawn promotions that looked imminent for both sides.

The Russian made his last mistake on the 31st move when he could promote his pawn to the seventh rank and trouble white. In time trouble, Khalifman was hard-pressed and his play suffered. He lost a knight on the 36th move in order to stop white's advancing pawn and the game was pretty much over. Anand converted the advantage and never made any mistake to win in 47 moves.

``Khalif's novelty ...a6 was very strong,'' said Anand who thought white was in serious danger if black played 27...Nc6, 28.Qxf7 Nd4. ``I was in trouble in this game. I somehow fought hard and won,'' said Anand with some relief. He faces Akopian with the black pieces on Saturday. Adams was in search of the playing hall 15 minutes prior to the start of the game. When he found it, he went for an old well analysed line against the Petroff's defence of Dutchman Piket.

Black was very close to equality all through and he overstepped the two-hour time limit making 37 moves, 3 short of the stipulation. ``I played far too slow, the position was a draw,'' said Piket.

Four-time winner Vladimir Kramnik prevailed over V. Akopian when black made a serious mistake on the 28th move in a queen pawn opening and lost later on the 41st move.

Defending champion and the youngest competitor Leko consistently improved his position with the white pieces to defeat the oldest rival Huebner in 53 moves with a pretty looking bishop and promotion tactic in the end.

E.Bareev managed to draw the computer Junior6 after being in trouble at several moments. The result came after six hours and 40 minutes and 73 moves.

Earlier on Thursday evening, the tournament was formally inaugurated by the Mayor of Dortmund at a function with dinner.

lThe results (first round): E. Bareev (Rus) drew with Junior6 (Isr), M. Adams (Eng) bt J. Piket (Ned), V. Kramnik (Rus) bt V. Akopian (Arm), V. Anand bt (Ind) A. Khalifman (Rus) and P. Leko (Hun) bt R. Huebner (Ger).

Pairings for Saturday's second round: Junior6-Huebner, Khalifman- Leko, Akopian-Anand, Piket- Kramnik and Bareev-Adams.

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