Anand beats Ivanchuk, takes lead

By Arvind Aaron

MONTE CARLO, MARCH 22. A well-timed pawn break gave world champion Viswanathan Anand an effervescent victory over Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine as he moved to sole lead mid-way through round five after the rapid session of the 10th Amber Chess tournament here on Thursday afternoon.

The 43-move rapid game victory helped Anand to avenge his defeat of last year and keep him on top with 6.5 points from nine games.

Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria are on second place with six points after making draws in their rapid games of round five. The fourth overnight leader, Peter Leko of Hungary was defeated by Boris Gelfand.

Six rounds and the blindfold session of the fifth round remain to be played in this $193,250 super tournament featuring rapid chess and blindfold chess. The tournament will conclude on March 29.

Anand opened with the king pawn as white and faced the Ruy Lopez. Ivanchuk's repertoire is as large as opening Encyclopedia itself that he rarely gets caught for want of preparation. After queens were exchanged off the board, few weaknesses were on the board. Anand exploited one of them with a punching pawn sacrifice on move 34. Ivanchuk who had to allow white's rook access in the heart of his territory resigned on move 43 when he could not stop white's queen rook pawn from queening.

Gelfand turned down an offer to repeat the position on turn 23 and was lucky to survive and win the game in 38 moves with the black pieces in a Sicilian Najdorf. Leko missed a win on move 26 when he could check the black king and force a mate or gain winning material.

In the game between the two oldest competitors of the tournament, Karpov outsmarted Ljubojevic in 46 moves with his knight doing the damage on the black position with multiple forks.

In the last set of rapid games, Van Wely held Topalov to a draw in a rook ending and stopped him from advancing.

Kramnik could not use his extra pawn against Almasi before ceding a draw from a rook and opposite colour bishop ending. He played white and got a slight advantage from the Nimzo-Indian defence game.

Shirov continued with the queen's gambit accepted which has not been suiting his style. Piket trapped the black knights with his two bishops and won an easy game in 39 moves with the white pieces.

The results (fifth round):

Rapid: A. Karpov bt L. Ljubojevic, V. Anand bt V. Ivanchuk, P. Leko lost to B. Gelfand, V. Kramnik drew Z. Almasi, J. Piket bt A. Shirov, Van Wely drew V. Topalov.

The standings after rapid session of round five: 1 V. Anand (Ind) 6.5/8, 2-3 V. Kramnik (Rus), V. Topalov (Bul) 6 each, 4 P. Leko (Hun) 5.5, 5 J. Piket (Ned) 5, 6-8 B. Gelfand (Isr), A. Karpov (Rus), L. Ljubojevic (Yug) 4 each, 9-10 Z. Almasi (Hun), A. Shirov (ESP) 3.5 each, 11-12 V. Ivanchuk (Ukr), Van Wely (Ned) 3 each.

The moves:

GM V. Anand-GM V. Ivanchuk, round five, Ruy Lopez, C88: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.a4 b4 9.d3 d6 10.a5 Be6 11.Nbd2 Bxb3 12.Nxb3 Re8 13.h3 Qd7 14.Bg5 h6 15.Bh4 Nh7 16.Bxe7 Rxe7 17.d4 exd4 18.Nfxd4 Nf6 19.f3 Nxd4 20.Qxd4 Qb5 21.Qd3 Qg5 22.Qd2 Qxd2 23.Nxd2 Rae8 24.Nb3 c5 25.Red1 Re6 26.Rd2 Kf8 27.Rad1 Ke7 28.Nc1 Rd8 29.Nd3 Rd7 30.b3 g5 31.Kf2 Rb7 32.Nb2 Rb5 33.Nc4 Ne8 34.e5 dxe5 35.Rd7+ Kf6 36.Ra7 Kg6 37.Rdd7 f6 38.Rd8 h5 39.Rda8 h4 40.Rxa6 Nc7 41.Rxe6 Nxe6 42.a6 Nc7 43.Ra7 1-0.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Next     : Kasparov, Gurevich ahead