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Anand back with a bang

Vishwanathan Anand came back in style and into contention with a brilliant 2-0 victory over Joel Lautier in the fifth round of Amber Rapid and Blindfold chess tournament in Monte Carlo.

The Indian Grandmaster, who is going through an extremely poor patch, outplayed the Frenchman in both the blindfold and rapid games. He maintained his top spot in blindfold and rose to fourth overall.

Anand now has six points from the maximum of ten. The sole leader after five rounds is Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, with eight points, while Alexi Shirov, the Latvian-born Spaniard is in second place with 7.5 points. Former World champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia is in third place with 6.5 points, half a point ahead of Anand.

Anand and Topalov are the two players to register 2-0 wins and interestingly they will now clash in the next round. A win there could see the Indian in the race for the honours.

This first 2-0 win since the 1998 Amber tournament should put Anand back into the race after disappointing losses against Shirov and Loek Van Wely. The rest day after four rounds, during which Anand twice lost in rapid games, seemed to have done the Indian champion a world of good. He was looking fresh and energetic as he took on Lautier.

Anand has been having a lot of trouble in rapid games, which is generally considered to be his forte. He twice lost in it here.

But in the fifth round, he found his form and scored his first victory. The Madras GM brought in a novelty in the Sicilian Najdorf opted for by Lautier. The French player, who is having a lean tournament, found himself in all sorts of trouble and resigned after 34 moves.

The day produced a whole lot of results in rapid games, as five of the six clashes gave decisions. The only game to end in a draw was the one between Vassily Ivanchuk and Jeroen Piket and it was a quick 16-move draw. In blindfold, Anand and Topalov, both with black, won their games against Lautier and Gelfand respectively.

It was a day for the Sicilian. Apart from Anand, who won against Lautier, Shirov and Topalov were also engaged in it and won their games in Sicilians.

Topalov, who did not play the Wijk Aan Zee and Linares events this year, seems to have benefited a great deal from the rest and is showing good form.

The Topalov-Gelfand rapid game resembled the one-played between Anand and Van Wely in the previous round. Gelfand deviated first on the 20th move but six moves later found himself hopeless and resigned. Topalov ended the game with 27 minutes and 10 seconds, which was 2 minutes and 10 seconds more than his starting time. In the blindfold game Topalov, black, again outplayed Gelfand.

Results of fifth round:

Rapid games: Ljubojevic lost to Karpov; Anand beat Lautier; Shirov beat Van Wely; Ivanchuk drew with Piket; Topalov beat Gelfand; Nikolic lost to Kramnik.

Blindfold: Karpov drew with Ljubojevic; Lautier lost to Anand; Van Wely drew with shirov; Piket drew with Ivanchuk; Gelfand lost to Topalov; Kramnik drew with Nikolic.

Rapidplay standings: 1. Shirov 4.5; 2. Topalov 4.0; 3-4. Ivanchuk and Karpov 3.0; 5. Gelfand, Van Wely and Kramnik 2.5; 8. Anand 2.0; 9-12. Piket, Lautier, Ljubojevic and Nikolic 1.5.

Blindfold standings: 1-2: Topalov and Anand 4.0; 3: Karpov 3.5 4-6: Kramnik, Shirov and Piket 3.0; 7-8: Gelfand and Van Wely 2.0; 9: Ljubojevic, Nikolic and Ivanchuk 1.5; 12: Lautier1.0.

Overall standings: 1. Topalov 8.0, 2 Shirov 7.5, 3. Karpov 6.5, 4. Anand 6.0, 5. Kramnik 5.5, 6-9 Piket, Ivanchuk, Van Wely and Gelfand 4.5; 10-11. Ljubojevic and Nikolic 3.0; 12. Lautier 2.5.

UNI