Anand back to winning way's

Anand back to winning way's
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Wijk Ann Zee, January 27: A rejuvenated Viswanathan Anand finally silenced his critics with a masterly win over Grandmaster Jeroen Piket of The Netherlands in the 11th round, to inch closer to sole leader GM Gary Kasparov at the Corus Grandmaster Group `A' chess tournament here.

The Russian GM shot into sole lead with a hard fought victory over GM Jan Timman of the Netherlands.

Kasparov with 8 points in his bag is a point ahead of nearest rival GMs Alexei Shirov of Spain and Alexander Morozevich of Russia.

World Champion Anand, who was deprived of victory in all the last eight games in succession, now has 6.5 points to his credit.

Playing White, Anand, threw everything against GM Jeroen Piket's King in the Petroff defence and crushed him in just 23 moves.

Displaying his attacking acumen, Anand forcefully developed a king-side attack to demolish his opponent. Piket walked into Anand's arena by opting for the Petroff and did not have a chance to recover after Anand unleashed a series of attacks that forced Piket to retreat all his developed pieces to the base rank.

The space advantage soon became overwhelming as Piket went astray to find the best defensive plan. The clock also ticked decisively in Anand's favour as he had about an hour more on his clock than Piket.

Anand left his knight on the king rook file to force Piket's resignation.

Kasparov played a game of fluctuating fortunes to down Timman. Playing from the White side, the former World Champion resorted to his old love -- the English opening and gained a dynamically balanced position in the middlegame.

The first part of middlegame was not handled perfectly by Timman who was saddled with pawn weaknesses on the Queen-side.

Kasparov, however, failed to conduct his plan in the exact manner and gave Timman a lot of counter play. As the game progressed into endgame, Kasparov's advanced pawns on the king-side gave him control over key squares of his opponent and his Bishop penetrated Black's position decisively.

Results of round 11: G Kasparov (8) bt J Timman (4); V Ivanchuk (6.5) bt A Shirov (7); V Anand (6.5) bt J Piket (3.5); A Morozevich (7) drew V Topalov (4.5), V Kramnik (6.5) drew P Leko (5); M Adams (6) lost to A Federov (4.5); S Tiviakov (3.5) drew L Van Wely (4.5).

Second GM norm for Hari

Indian chess prodigy, P Harikrishna achieved his second Grand Master norm with a quick draw against International Master Teimour Rajdabov of Azerbaijan in the 9th round of the Grandmaster Group `B' chess tournament here.

The 14-year-old Harikrishna made his first norm at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad last year. With almost all the important age group National titles under his belt, Wipro-sponsored Harikrishna has now trained his sight on the coveted Grandmaster title.

Results: P Harikrishna (6) drew T Radjabov (6); T Luther (6) drew De Vreugt (4.5); Nijboer Friso (5.5) bt M Bosboom (4.5); Boris Gulko 5 drew M Gurevich (6.5); Nico Vink (1.5) drew Yge Visser (3); E Hoeksema (1) lost to V Karel (5).

Chanda loses

UBEDA (SPAIN): International Master Sandipan Chanda suffered a setback in his quest for second Grandmaster norm when he lost tamely to GM Sulkis of Lithuania in the sixth round of the Ubeda International Open chess tournament here.

The day saw four Indians -- RB Ramesh, Sriram Jha, DK Sharma and Aarthie Ramaswamy -- recording comprehensive wins. Rahul Shetty and CS Gokhale drew their matches while K Visweswaran was the only other Indian to lose.

Results of round 6: Sulkis (4.5) bt Sandipan Chanda (3.5); Rahul Shetty (3) drew Reinaldo Castineiro (3); K Bjerring (2) lost to RB Ramesh (3); Wohl (2.5) drew CS Gokhale (2.5); Paramos Dominguez (3) bt Visweswaran (2); A Frank (2) lost ot Sriram Jha (3); DK Sharma (3) bt Garcia Bueno (2); Aarthie Ramaswamy (2.5) bt Millan Urrutia (1.5).