Anand beats Leko, Topalov upsets Kramnik

A brilliant victory by World champion Vishwanathan Anand over Peter Leko of Hungary and another superlative effort by Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria were the high points of the third round of the 10th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament, in Monte Carlo, on Tuesday.

Anand was unfazed by the reverses in the blindfold game in the previous round against L Ljubojovic of Yugoslavia and proved his superiority in the rapid game once again when he defeated Leko to go one-up. A draw in the blindfold game gave Anand a 1.5-0.5 win that took him to the joint second position with four points alongwith Leko, who was in the joint lead till the previous round.

Topalov continued to lead the 12-man field with an upset 1.5-0.5 win against Braingames match winner Vladmir Kramnik of Russia.

Anand started the rapid game with a surprise on his first move with white pieces. The queen pawn opening was up against the Grunfeld Indian defence wherein Anand chose to play the Hungarian variation and got the upper hand with a positional pawn sacrifice in the middlegame.

Leko got a slightly worse endgame and his pieces were confined to the defence of his kingside whereas Anand made decisive forays with a pawn roller on the other flank.

Leko parted with a piece on his 36th move and Anand handled the technicalities in copybook fashion thereon.

In the blindfold game the Indian stalwart employed the French defence and the pieces got exchanged in tandem.

Anand equalised by the 15th move and, after the exchange of Queens, had no difficulty in bringing his king over to the queenside from where it defended against a possible onslaught by white.

Leko had to go for the exchange of Rooks and the players arrived at a drawn king and pawn endgame where the peace treaty was signed after 33 moves.

Topalov was the big winner of the day. Kramnik faced the Modern Benoni with white pieces in the rapid game and held the positional advantage for a long time.

However, the game never really left the boundaries of a draw as Topalov managed to get his share of counterplay with his passed queen pawn. The truce was signed after 60 moves.

In the blindfold game, both Topalov and Kramnik played the opening moves very fast and after 15 minutes, both had gained time on their clock in the Queen's Gambit Declined game where Kramnik was white.

The Russian sank in a long thought immediately after but that did not solve any of his problems. Soon the game drifted into a Rook and Pawn endgame and Topalov gained a clear advantage thanks to his active rook. After driving Kramnik's king to the base rank, Topalov had no difficulty in converting his advantage.

Defending champion Alexei Shirov of Spain struggled once again and settled for a 1-1 draw against Zoltan Almasi of Hungary.

In the rapid game, Shirov faced the Sicilian Taimanov with white pieces and his position looked suspicious to experts before Almasi went awry with his plans and landed himself in a worse endgame. Once on top Shirov gave a fine display to romp home after 61 moves.

In the blindfold, however, the Latvian born Spaniard was on the receiving end as Almasi got into the groove right from the word go. The English attack favoured by Almasi against the Sicilian Nazdorf had enough complications for Shirov to worry about and he was gradually outplayed.

Ljubomir Ljubojevic of Yugoslavia continued to impress with an excellent 1.5-0.5 victory against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. In the rapid game Ljubojevic employed the Sicilian Scheveningen with black pieces yet again and it was an out and out tactical battle after Ivanchuk pushed his kingside pawns for the attack.

An exchange sacrifice by Ljubojevic gave him ample counterplay and the draw was agreed to after 46 moves.

The blindfold battle between the two looked like heading for a draw when Ivanchuk suddenly blundered on his 31st move and lost rather tamely.

The games between Anatoly Karpov of Russia and Boris Gelfand of Israel ended in a 1-1 draw with both games remaining undecisive. The same result was achieved in an all-Dutch encounter between Loek Van Wely and Joroen Piket.