Anand draws with Kramnik

By Arvind Aaron

MONTE CARLO, MARCH 28. Exhibiting a top class defensive performance, World champion Viswanathan Anand saved a difficult rook ending to draw with the Brain Games World champion Vladimir Kramnik in the day's most absorbing battle on Wednesday.

After the rapid session of the tenth and penultimate round in the 10th Amber chess tournament, Kramnik, maintains his half point lead with 13.5 points. He is followed by Bulgarian Veselin Topalov on 13 points and Anand on 12 points. Kramnik leads the combined ad rapid standings alone, and the blindfold section together with Topalov on 6.5 points.

The final round will be played on Thursday in this $193,250 super tournament featuring rapid chess and blindfold chess. There is also appearance money for the players. The blindfold games of the penultimate round will take place later this evening.

Wednesday's Rapid Games

The first session of the rapid games produced three draws. Almasi respected Gelfand and offered a 17-move draw with the white pieces which was accepted.

Ivanchuk played into Piket's strong point, the Grunfeld defence and made a comfortable 58-move draw with the black pieces. Ivanchuk and Piket, both of whom have played in all the Amber tournaments over the 10 years, played enterprising and lively chess despite disturbance from three mobile telephone calls in the audience. Piket with a rook and pawn against black's knight and three advancing pawns took a draw by perpetual check. Karpov was unhappy with the 39-move draw that he made with Van Wely with the black pieces in a queen's gambit opening.

As black, Anand accepted the queen's gambit. The middle game and ending had white in the drivers seat. At best, Anand managed to get into a double rook and minor piece ending with a pawn deficit. Kramnik who won a pawn on move 23 had a difficult conversion on hand. In the rook ending, where white had a pawn more, he had to have his rook behind his own passed pawn to win and black had to get his rook behind white's passed pawn to draw. Both players did not get what they wanted. Kramnik tried to regroup his king to defend his pawn which he was defending with his rook from the side. Anand produced a 76-move draw reconfirming his status as a defensive expert in chess.

Topalov did not have ammunition to defeat the Petroff's defence and settled for a 28-move draw with white against Leko. Ljubojevic starts well and again plays well at the end in this tournament. He upset Shirov in 57 moves when Shirov was less cautious about his own king to let black have a mating attack.

Tuesday's Blindfold Games

Topalov may be in a better position to win the tournament for he finished the strongest player of the meet and is in second place with 12.5 points.

Kramnik and Illescas decided to celebrate after their 2-0 sweep. He always has the knack of getting Ljubo and he proved that nothing goes wrong against this Belgrade born opponent. He won a one-sided king's Indian defence game in 27 moves.

In their reverse game, Anand played the French defence as black and was never in any danger. After 25 moves Anand accepted the draw offer that Topalov made after the queens were exchanged off. Topalov also wanted to repeat last year's score line and felt content for the day.

The results (tenth round):

Rapid: Almasi drew with Gelfand, Piket drew with Ivanchuk, Van Wely drew with Karpov, Shirov lost to Ljubojevic, Kramnik drew with Anand, Topalov drew with Leko.

ninth round: Blindfold: Kramnik bt Ljubojevic, Topalov drew with Anand, Shirov bt Leko, Piket drew with Gelfand, Almasi bt Karpov, Van Wely bt Ivanchuk.

The standings mid-way through the 10th round: 1. V.Kramnik (Rus) 13.5/19, 2. V.Topalov (Bul) 13, 3. V.Anand (Ind) 12, 4. A.Shirov (ESP) 10, 5. P.Leko (Hun) 10, 6. J.Piket (Ned) 9, 7. B.Gelfand (Isr) 8.5, 8-9. Z.Almasi (Hun), L.Ljubojevic (Yug) 8 each, 10-11. V.Ivanchuk (Ukr), A.Karpov (Rus) 7.5 each, 12. Van Wely (Ned) 7.

The moves:

GM V.Kramnik-GM V.Anand, round 10, rapid, queen's gambit accepted, D27: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 e6 4.e3 Nf6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0- 0 a6 7.Bb3 cxd4 8.exd4 Nc6 9.Nc3 Be7 10.Re1 0-0 11.Bf4 Na5 12.d5 Nxb3 13.Qxb3 exd5 14.Rad1 Be6 15.Qxb7 Bc5 16.Be5 Qa5 17.Nd4 Bxd4 18.Rxd4 Nd7 19.Bd6 Nc5 20.Qc7 Qxc7 21.Bxc7 Rfc8 22.Bg3 Ne4 23.Nxd5 Bxd5 24.Rxd5 Nxg3 25.hxg3 Rc2 26.Red1 g6 27.R1d2 Rc1+ 28.Kh2 h5 29.g4 h4 30.g5 Kg7 31.R5d4 Rc5 32.Rxh4 Rxg5 33.Rf4 Ra7 34.g3 a5 35.Rfd4 Rb5 36.b3 Rc5 37.Kg2 Rb7 38.Rd5 Rxd5 39.Rxd5 a4 40.Rd3 axb3 41.axb3 Kf6 42.Kf3 Ke5 43.Ke3 g5 44.Kd2 Ke4 45.f3+ Ke5 46.Re3+ Kd5 47.Kc2 f5 48.f4 gxf4 49.gxf4 Kd4 50.Re5 Rc7+ 51.Kb2 Rf7 52.b4 Kc4 53.Ka3 Rf6 54.Rc5+ Kd4 55.Re5 Kc4 56.Rc5+ Kd4 57.Kb3 Ke3 58.Rc4 Rb6 59.Ka4 Kd3 60.Kb3 Ke3 61.Ka4 Kd3 62.Rc5 Ke4 63.Ka5 Rb8 64.Rc4+ Kd3 65.Rc1 Ke3 66.Rf1 Ke2 67.Rc1 Ke3 68.Rf1 Ke2 69.Rb1 Ke3 70.b5 Kxf4 71.b6 Ke3 72.Rb3+ Ke4 73.Ka6 f4 74.Ka7 Rf8 75.Rb4+ Ke3 76.b7 f3. Draw.

GM V.Topalov-GM V.Anand, round nine, blindfold, French, C10: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.g3 b6 8.Bg2 Bb7 9.0-0 Be7 10.Qe2 0-0 11.Rd1 Qc8 12.c4 Re8 13.b3 a5 14.Bh3 Nd7 15.Qd3 Qd8 16.Bg2 Nf6 17.Ne5 Bxg2 18.Kxg2 a4 19.Bf4 Ra6 20.Nc6 Qa8 21.Qf3 axb3 22.Nxe7+ Rxe7 23.Qxa8+ Rxa8 24.axb3 Rd8 25.Ra7. Draw.

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