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Vishy Anand suffers first round loss

Vishwanathan Anand, second highest-ranked player in the world and deemed a hot favourite to win the FIDE world championship title bout, to be played under the new league-cum-knockout basis in December, lost to French grandmaster Joel Lautier in the first round of the Investbanka Chess Tournament on Wednesday.

The tournament, ranked Category 18-grade, saw Anand admit defeat, playing white, after 41 moves to the much lower ranked French player.

Meanwhile Vladimir Kramnik, who is seeded favourite to win this tournament, started off with a win, playing black, over Alexander Kovacevic. The marathon game lasted all of 74 moves before Kovacevic admitted defeat.

In other games, Vassily Ivanchuk defeated Kiril Georgiev, while Alexi Shirov playing white defeated Boris Gelfand in 55 moves.