Anand Defeats Karjakin 1.5-0.5
By Arvind Aaron

A knight manoeuvre featuring a sacrifice of piece saw world champion Viswanathan Anand register his first blindfold victory in the 17th Amber Chess Tournament at Nice on March 21.

The blindfold win with the black pieces over Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine gave Anand a 1.5-0.5 win from the sixth round. In the rapid chess encounter, Anand was at one stage a pawn up but could not win and make a 2-0 sweep. He settled for a 1.5-0.5 win.

Overall, Anand moved from joint second place to clear second place on seven points from twelve games. Levon Aronian of Armenia is leading with 7.5 points. Five rounds or ten games remain to be played in this 12- player Euro 216,000 prize money event.

The number of decisive games took a steep fall with only two wins recorded. Anand and Morozevich won one game apiece with black while the rest of the ten games ended in draws. Good Friday saw the most quiet  round of this category 21 edition.

The sixth round results (blindfold): Karjakin lost to Anand, Aronian drew with Mamedyarov, Carlsen drew with Topalov, Ivanchuk drew Leko, Van Wely lost to Morozevich, Gelfand drew with Kramnik.

The sixth round results (rapid): Anand drew with Karjakin, Mamedyarov drew with Aronian, Topalov drew with Carlsen, Leko drew with Ivanchuk, Morozevich drew with Van Wely, Kramnik drew with Gelfand.


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Home                                                       Published on 22^nd  March, 2008