Anand Defeats Kramnik, In Joint Lead
By Arvind Aaron

A big king side attack and a queen sacrifice to finish off the game gave world champion Viswanathan Anand a big win over Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the opening round of the Amber Tournament at Nice on March 15. In the blindfold game, Anand drew Kramnik with the white pieces facing a Petroff's defence in 23 moves.

Coming back for the reverse rapid chess game with the black pieces, Anand played the queen's Indian defence. He hurled his king side pawns and abandoned the queen side to speed up his mating process. Two pawns, a bishop and a queen is what Anand sacrificed to find checkmate. Kramnik was outplayed by a speedy genius from India.

Kramnik is the defending champion of the Amber Tournament and also the Blindfold title holder. Anand is the defending rapid champion of this event. Anand leads the 12-player event with 1.5/2. Also on the leaders platform on 1.5/2 are Levon Aronian, Vassily Ivanchuk, Veselin Topalov, Sergey Karjakin.

Anand is the third oldest player in this meet after Gelfand and Ivanchuk. The tournament veteran Ivanchuk beat the 1990-born Carlsen in blindfold and drew the rapid game.

The average rating of this event is 2752, only four Elo lower than Linares. However, this wont count for rating as it is not classical chess. Ten rounds remain to be played in this Euro 216,000 prize fund composite blindfold and rapid chess tournament.

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

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

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Home                                                       Published on 17^th  March, 2008