Gelfand Joins Anand In The Van
By Arvind Aaron

The two older players of the eight-player FIDE World Chess Championship tournament, Boris Gelfand of Israel and Viswanathan Anand are ahead after six rounds with four points. Eight rounds remain to be played in this event which is happening at Mexico City.

Anand's strong start perhaps made Leko to be less ambitious. In a Ruy Lopez, Anand equalised easily sacrificing a pawn on the wing and won a pawn in the centre to equalise. After 21 moves, Anand offered a draw with the black pieces which Leko agreed.

There was only one decisive game. Gelfand won in 50 moves after Morozevich perished on his own by playing a provocative sacrifice to lose an exchange. This happened in the earlier round too when Aronian lost in a similar manner to Gelfand. Gelfand runs into Kramnik with black in the next game. Aronian and Kramnik played a 22-move draw from the Catalan opening. Grischuk and Svidler played an exciting 41-move draw.

There is video feed available from Vijay Kumar of Live Teleshows, New Delhi who is present in Mexico. If you have a good bandwidth try to see the championship at the following address:

Videolinl for Round 5: http://blip.tv/file/386449

Videolink for Round 6: http://blip.tv/file/386849

The results (round six): Peter Leko (Hun) 2.5 drew Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 4, Alexander Grischuk (Rus) 3.5 drew Peter Svidler (Rus) 2, Levon Aronian (Arm) 2.5 drew Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) 3.5, Boris Gelfand (Isr) 4 bt Alexander Morozevich (Rus) 2.

Pairing for round seven on Sep 20: Anand v Grischuk, Kramnik v Gelfand, Morozevich v Leko, Svidler v Aronian.