Defending champion Viswanathan Anand overpowered Grandmaster Loek Van Wely of Holland in the rapid game to register a 1.5-0.5 victory in the 8th round of 15th Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament in Monaco.
After a hard fought draw in the blindfold game, the Indian ace came up with an inspired performance in the return rapid game to remain on the heels of Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich of Russia who defeated World champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria also by the same margin.
Morozevich emerged as the sole leader with 11 points out of a possible 16 while Anand was right behind him on 10.5 points in the Euros 2,16,000 prize money tournament.
The third place was held by Spaniard Francisco Vallejo Pons on 9.5 points while placed a distant joint fourth were Alexander Grischuk of Russia and Peter Leko of Hungary on 8 points.
Anand's supremacy in the rapid section however remained intact as the Indian ace took his tally to 6 points out of a possible 8 here. Morozevich and Vallejo Pons were next in line in this section having 4.5 points each.
In the blindfold section, Morozevich looked to be running away with the crown as he took his tally in this section to an astounding 6.5 points out of a possible 8. His nearest contender were Vallejo Pons and Hungarian Peter Leko who both have 5 points while Anand is in the next group having 4.5 points in his kitty. Anand needed a win in the blindfold game against Van Wely to match Morozevich but he could not achieve that against a solid play by the Dutchman who played the black side of a French defense game. Having tried different openings against the Indian over past many years, Van Wely pinned his hopes on the opening that is doing well of late in elite chess circles and had nothing to complain after he achieved half a point after an interesting battle. Anand was up against the Rubenstein set up in the opening and he could claim a slight advantage when the middle game surfaced. Van Wely came up with an exchange sacrifice after finding himself in considerable troubles and bailed himself out in the endgame when Anand's better piece could not do much against an astute defense. The game lasted 55 moves. Morozevich's victory against Topalov came in 56 moves from a Queen's Indian defense game where the Russian played black and was a class act in pushing the World champion to wall in the middle game.
The endgame surfaced with Morzevich having an extra pawn and he made no mistakes to convert it in to a full point. The blindfold games are played on the computer here with only the last move played visible on the board.
In the rapid games, however, it was a different story as Anand outclassed Van Wely from a seemingly balanced position arising out of a Queen pawn game as black while Morozevich could get a draw against Topalov.
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