Anand Wrests Sole Lead
By Arvind Aaron

World champion Viswanathan Anand played two fighting draws in round three against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria to move into sole lead in the Amber Tournament.

Drawing Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the blindfold game, world champion Viswanathan Anand is ahead in the combined and rapid standings of the Amber Tournament at Nice, France on Monday.

In the combined standings he is on 4/6 and is ahead of the 12-player field by half a point. Anand has made three draws in the blindfold section. In the rapid section, he is in the lead all by himself on 2.5/3.

Anand is in terrific form. He is playing at around 3052 Elo rating performance in rapid chess where he is defending his title. This is a very strong field with 2752 average rating event.

Vassily Ivanchuk, Winner of the very first edition of the Amber Tournament in 1992 is in joint second place on 3.5 along with Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen. Topalov played the Caro-Kann defence with the black pieces and drew by repetition of checks in 47 moves. Earlier, in the opening blindfold game, Anand lost a pawn but drew with opposite colour bishops ending creating a nice fortress.

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

Eight rounds or 16 games remain to be played in this Euro 216,000 prize money composite tournament featuring blindfold and rapid chess.The third round results (rapid): Kramnik lost to Mamedyarov, Anand drew with Topalov, Morozevich lost to Leko, Gelfand bt Aronian, Karjakin bt Carlsen, Ivanchuk lost to Van Wely.

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Home                                                       Published on 18^th  March, 2008