Sport - Chess   

The even tussle continues

By Arvind Aaron

Mainz Aug. 16. Viswanathan Anand rebounded from a deficit for the second time to draw level at 2-2 against Judit Polgar of Hungary in the Chess Classic rapid chess here on Friday.

Both players won with the black pieces on Friday. Anand missed a chance in the third game with white to win and used a tiny advantage to outplay Polgar in the fourth encounter.

In the Chess960 World championship, Peter Leko of Hungary has taken a 2.5-1.5 lead over Peter Svidler of Russia after winning the fourth game in 61 moves.

A game down and with the black pieces in game four, Anand played the Najdorf variation like in game one on Thursday. This time, Polgar castled kingside and played for a small positional initiative. Anand fianchettoed his king bishop and after 19 moves, both players had 19 minutes left on their clocks. Polgar obtained a small space advantage.

By placing a knight in the centre on move 22 Anand equalised and later got a chance on move 25 to play for a tiny advantage. By move 33 the game looked heading for a dead draw with the players having a queen, rook, opposite colour bishops and six pawns each.

Anand utilised an opportunity provided by Polgar with a pawn break on the 34th move. Thereafter, Polgar had to fight for a draw having a slightly difficult position and a three-minute deficit on the clock.

On move 40, Anand's position looked slightly better and his time advantage had dipped to just a minute. Soon Anand started to make use of his active bishop and weaved threats around the white king. Polgar had her bishop poorly placed and was in dire straits.

Polgar made a blunder on the 51st move by advancing the pawn in front of her king. Anand exploited this and won by combining an attack with his queen, rook and bishop in 52 moves.

Earlier, Polgar took a 2-1 lead by beating Anand in 57 moves in the third game.

Aronian triumphs: The Chess960 Open Tournament was won by 21-year-old Grandmaster Levon Aronian, the Armenian who is ranked No. 44 in the world.

Despite a penultimate round defeat, Aronian bounced back in the final round to upset Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria to win the tournament with 9.5 points from eleven games.

Grandmasters Vadim Zviaginsev of Russia and Konstantin Landa of Germany finished second and third respectively with nine points each.

A total of 179 players took part in this event of which 50 were Grandmasters.

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