Win gives Vishy Anand the lead

Win gives Vishy Anand the lead
Press Trust of India

Monte Carlo, March 21: World champion Viswanathan Anand outwitted GM Boris Gelfand of Israel 1.5-0.5 to join GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Braingames match winner GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and GM Peter Leko of Hungary on top on 5.5 points after the end of the fourth round of the 10th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament being here yesterday.

Giving a clear indication of tactical battle, Anand opted for an ultra sharp variation in the Catalan opening employed by Gelfand with white pieces in the rapid game. A pawn sacrifice in the early middlegame gave Anand more room to deploy his pieces and what followed was a spectators delight.

On the 20th move the Indian GM sacrificed a piece to continue his attack while at the same time Gelfand struggled to complete his development.

The confinement of opponents’ pieces to the base rank enabled Anand to bring his rook out and it looked as though he would crash through the defenses of Gefand. However, a subtle and effective measure by Gelfand forced the exchange of queens and Anand was forced to give perpetual hecks to steer the game to a draw after 27 moves.

In the blindfold game anand found himself struggling in the Sicilian Nazdorf employed by Gelfand with black pieces. In the fashionable English attack Anand conceded his dark squared bishop and the semi closed nature of the center made him sweat hard to defend the weak queen pawn.

Gelfand appeared clearly on top at the outset but in the postmortem analysis there was no convincing victory found for the Israeli.

As the game progressed the Indian ace got the desired initiative after a few lackluster moves by Gelfand and did not let the advantage slip out of hands. The biggest surprise of the day was an in-form Topalov’s loss to GM Jeroen Piket of the Netherlands by a 0.5-1.5 margin.

Topalov, who has had outstanding success so far in the tournament, went down in the rapid game in a rather off beat variation of the Petroff defense. What might have demoralised him more is the fact that he lost with the white piece. In the middlegame piket was bidding for counterplay after sacrificing an exchange for two pawns but Topalov quickly traded the queen.