Anand puts it across Leko

By Arvind Aaron

MONTE CARLO, MARCH 19. World champion Viswanathan Anand recovered from Sunday's late evening setback by defeating overnight joint leader Peter Leko of Hungary in a crucial third round game of the 10th Amber chess tournament at the Le Metropole Palace Hotel here on Monday.

Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria held Braingames champion Vladimir Kramnik in the rapid game to move into sole lead mid-way through day three with four points. Anand, his latest victim Peter Leko, Kramnik and Alexei Shirov are jointly in second place with 3.5 points.

The tournament features 12-players who will face each other in one rapid and one blindfold game. Eight full rounds and the blindfold session of round three remain to be played. The $193,250 event will conclude on March 29.

Opening with the queen pawn, Anand faced the Grunfeld defence, Leko's standard response. Going for the main variation using 5.Qb3, Anand appeared to be thoroughly prepared and obtained what he wanted from the opening. While being outplayed, Leko sacrificed a knight before Anand used the extra material to win a good bishop ending with technique.

The wind behind his back after upstaging Anand in the blindfolded game, Ljubomir Ljubojevic drew with Vassily Ivanchuk with confidence in 46 moves with the black pieces in a Sicilian defence. Both players sacrificed rooks for bishops and entered an opposite colour bishop ending before spliting the point.

With the black pieces, Gelfand defended well and drew with Karpov in a major pieces ending that emerged from a Catalan opening. It was the only bland encounter of the day.

In the blindfold games on Sunday, Shirov was second time lucky as Topalov missed his chance to win on move 23 in a Sicilian dragon. Shirov's risky play nearly got him his second zero. Then, when Topalov faltered, Shirov too played inaccurately to draw in 33 moves after missing minor chances.

Kramnik had an easy win over Dutchman van Wely after the Tilburg Grandmaster played the transposed Grunfeld defence with black rather poorly. Winning two pawns at random, Kramnik won a rook for bishop to force resignation on move 32.

Ljubojevic beats Anand

The second set of games were fought in a more exciting manner. Veteran and bottom seed Ljubojevic pulled off a sensational 25- move victory over top seed Anand with the black pieces in a Sicilian defence.

``I played naturally, his Bh5 and Nxf7 was slow,'' said Ljubojevic about rebounding to make a creditable 1-1 score against the reigning world champion. It was Anand's first loss since July 2000 when he lost a game to Kramnik in Dortmund. He remained undefeated in the World Cup at Shenyang, China, Corsica Masters here in the French Riviera, World Championship at New Delhi-Teheran and the Corus Tournament at Wijk aan Zee. Anand's king side attack allowed black far greater harmony on the queen side to pin down a rook on the centre of the board. In another game, Ivanchuk turned the tide to inflict a defeat on Gelfand for a 1.5-0.5 victory from the day. Gelfand unestimated white's attack and lost in 33 moves.

The results:

Third round: Rapid: V. Ivanchuk drew with L. Ljubojevic; A. Karpov drew with B. Gelfand; V. Anand bt P. Leko; A. Shirov bt Z. Almasi; V. Kramnik drew with V. Topalov; L. van Wely drew with J. Piket.

Second round: Blindfold: Z. Almasi lost to J. Piket; V. Kramnik bt L. van Wely; A. Shirov drew with V. Topalov; V. Anand lost to L. Ljubojevic; A. Karpov drew with P. Leko; V. Ivanchuk bt B. Gelfand.

The combined standings mid-way through round three: 1 V. Topalov (Bul) 4/5, 2-5 V. Anand (Ind), V. Kramnik (Rus), P. Leko (Hun), A. Shirov (ESP) 3.5 each, 6 L. Ljubojevic (Yug) 2.5, 7-9 B. Gelfand (Isr), V. Ivanchuk (Ukr), J. Piket (Ned) 1.5 each, 10 A. Karpov (Rus) 1.5, 11 Z. Almasi (Hun) 1, 12 van Wely (Ned) 1.

The moves:

GM V. Anand-GM L. Ljubojevic, round two, blindfold, Sicilian Scheveningen, B85: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be2 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Be3 Be7 9.f4 d6 10.Qe1 0-0 11.Qg3 Bd7 12.Rad1 Kh8 13.Nf3 Nb4 14.Rd2 d5 15.e5 Ne4 16.Nxe4 dxe4 17.Ng5 Bc6 18.Bh5 Nd5 19.Nxf7+ Rxf7 20.Bxf7 Nxe3 21.Qxe3 Bb5 22.c4 Bc5 23.Rd4 Bxc4 24.Rc1 b5 25.Bxe6 Qa7 0-1.

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