Anand Joins Carlsen In Lead
By Arvind Aaron

Viswanathan Anand ended the Mexican half of the Morelia-Linares Super Category Tournament on a winning note by defeating Peter Leko of Hungary with the black pieces on Feb 25. That win leaves Anand and Carlsen in joint lead with 4.5 points after the first all-play-all featuring seven rounds. The last seven rounds will be played in Linares, Spain from March 2-10.

Anand played black and it was a Catalan opening. Unable to castle, he developed his king rook through the Rh8-h6 square into the game. Later, he gave a rook for bishop and pawn. Black's two pawns were advanced in the queen side and Leko could not devise a plan to stop them and resigned a bit early. Anand was the only player to defeat Leko. Leko had drawn all his other six games. Anand's third win can now help him to go to Linares with his head high as he takes on the same bunch of players with the reversed colours.

Ivanchuk won the isolated queen pawn of Aronian and kept winning pawns to make a difficult ending easy to win.

Topalov prevailed in the game between the two players in the bottom of the points table. Topalov as white against the French defence of Morozevich did not castle and the game was complicated with both players not castling. Topalov hunted black's king first. Svidler completed the seven rounds with seven draws. He drew Carlsen in a rook and bishop ending.

The results (round seven): Peter Leko (Hun) 3 lost to Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 4.5, Peter Svidler (Rus) 3.5 drew Magnus Carlsen (Nor) 4.5, Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 4 bt Levon Aronian (Arm) 3.5, Veselin Topalov (Bul) 3 bt Alexander Morozevich (Rus) 2.


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Published on : 27th Feb, 2007