Monte Carlo, March 24: Dutch GM Jeroen Piket handed Vladimir Kramnik his first defeat of the event in 34 moves (rapid game), but the Russian bounced back immediately to grind Piket in blindfold to share the day's honours. He continued to lead with 10 points at the end of seventh round of the Eighth Melody Amber Chess Tournament on Tuesday.Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand (7.5) extended his lead to a full one point in the rapid section but slipped to sixth overall after he was held to a draw both in rapidplay and blindfold by Joel Lautier of France.
Kramnik leads the blindfold section and combined standings by 1.5 points each.
Piket was clubbed with Spaniard Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria for the second to fourth spots with 8.5 points. Fide World Champion GM Anatoly Karpov of Russia is sole fifth.
Results: (7th round)
Rapid: Ivanchuk lost to Ljubojevic; Piket bt Kramnik; Karpov drew Van Wely; Nikolic lost to Shirov; Gelfand bt Topalov; Lautier drewAnand.
Blindfold: Ljubojevic drew Ivanchuk; Kramnik bt Piket; Van Wely lost to Karpov; Shirov bt Nikolic; Topalov bt Gelfand; Anand drew Lautier.
Combined Standings: Kramnik 10; Lautier, Topalov, Shirov 8.5; Karpov 8; Anand 7.5; Nikolic, Ljubojevic, Ivanchuk 6; Gelfand 5.5; Van Wely 5; Piket 4.5.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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