Anand romps into fourth round

World No. 2 Vishwanathan Anand used an exchange sacrifice to perfection against Grandmaster Smbat Lputian before beating the Armenian to make it to the fourth round of the World chess championship in Delhi on Monday.

The super GM was involved in a tense game against Lputian in the second game of the third round, and he surprised chess experts by opting an exchange sacrifice to make his position highly double-edged.

In the roughly equal position, Anand kept his chances alive and the Indian benefitted from Lputian's hasty moves, made under time pressure.

Anand, who has a reputation of being a 'French killer', was pleasantly surprised after getting the French Opening on the board.

The Armenian was, however, well prepared for the attack and played precisely to get a comfortable position out of the opening. But, Anand blew Lputian's plans for a draw through his telling move.

"A draw would have been a fair result but obviously I wanted to avoid playing tie-break matches," Anand said after his victory.

American Boris Gulko, who was a point ahead after a fantastic win with black pieces on Sunday, drew the game with white against Zurab Azamiparashvili of Georgia and entered the fourth round with 1.5-0.5 margin win.

The 53-year-old Gulko is the oldest player in this championship.

Grandmaster Evgeny Bareev of Russia completed a clean sweep by winning the second game against Belarussian GM ALeksej Aleksandrov.

Other high-profile GMs who made it to the fourth round were Vaselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Alexey Dreev of Russia and Bralia's Rafael Leitao.

Topalov defeated compatriot Kiril Georgiev; Dreev ended the hopes of Dutchman Loek van Wely and Leitao downed Igor Nataf of France.

In the women's section, World champion Xie Jun of China dominated the day as she easily overcame Elena Zayac of Russia.

After a draw in the first game of the third round, Jun cantered to victory displaying her class in handling tougher situations.

Alisa Maric of Yugoslavia and Peng Zhaoqin of the Netherlands also made it to the fourth round.

Maric defeated Cmilyte Viktorija of Lithuania while Zhaoqin outwitted Julia Demina of Russia.

World number two Alisa Galliamova of Russia was shocked by Almira Skripchenko-Lautier of Moldova in the second game of the third round.

After having lost to Galliamova yesterday, the Moldovan bounced back with a clean victory to stretch the round into the tie-breaker matches.