Shirov moves closer to title

By Arvind Aaron

MONTE CARLO, MARCH 27. Vladimir Kramnik of Russia capitalised on a blunder by Viswanathan Anand to beat him in the crucial blindfold encounter to wrest the lead in that section of the 9th Amber chess tournament here at the Le Metropole Palace Hotel on Sunday.

Consistency and 1.5-0.5 scores over each of his nine opponents have gone behind Alexei Shirov's success in the event thus far, after he jumped to a one-point lead in the rapid section and two points in the combined section and is very strongly placed to win this $127,500 event.

Anand's winning spree was halted by Kramnik as he lost 0.5-1.5 on the day. Anand was lucky to draw the rapid game and unlucky to have blundered away a pawn, game and lead in the blindfold section. Anand is in clear fourth place on 11 points from 18 games.

Kramnik had a lasting space and good bishop versus bad bishop advantage when Anand blundered a pawn and resigned instantly on the 32nd move. ``It is unpleasant to fight without a chance,'' GM Vlastimil Hort said with some justification for Anand's seemingly early resignation.

The results (ninth round):

Rapid: V. Anand drew with V. Kramnik, A. Karpov drew with V. Ivanchuk, A. Shirov bt B. Gelfand, J. Lautier drew with P. Nikolic, L. van Wely bt V. Topalov, L. Ljubojevic lost to J. Piket.

Blindfold: Kramnik bt Anand, Ivanchuk bt Karpov, Gelfand drew with Shirov, Nikolic lost to Lautier, Topalov drew with Van Wely, Piket drew with Ljubojevic.

The combined standings after nine rounds: 1 A. Shirov (ESP) 13.5/18, 2-3 V. Kramnik (Rus), V. Topalov (Bul) 11.5 each, 4 V. Anand (Ind) 11, 5 V. Ivanchuk (Ukr) 10.5, 6-7 B. Gelfand (Isr), A. Karpov (Rus) 9 each, 8-9 J. Piket (Ned), L.Van Wely (Ned) 8 each, 10 J. Lautier (Fra) 6, 11 P. Nikolic (Bih) 5.5, 12 L. Ljubojevic (Yug) 4.5.

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