Viswanathan Anand, three-time winner of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament opened with a sweeping 2-0 verdict over Alexei Shirov in the first round of this extremely interesting tournament.
Anand, the NIIT Brand Ambassador, with white, handled Shirov's Pteroff defence very well and when then the Latvian-born Spaniard lost a piece he resigned on the 35th move. In the return game in rapid, Anand had black in a Caro-Kann game. It was an interesting and dynamic game. But Shirov blundered and the game to a halt and resigned on the 32nd move.
Anand was the only player to win both his blindfold and rapid games.
In other interesting results, Kramnik beat Vassily Ivanchuk in blindfold, but lost in the rapid. Morozevich beat Loek Van Wely in blindfold and drew in rapid, while Francisco Vallejo Pons had a similar result against Veselin Topalov. Peter Svidler also won his blindfold game against Peter Leko and split the point in rapid.
The blindfold games are played with computers. An empty chessboard appears on the player's screen. The moves are made with a mouse or with the keyboard. Each move will appear on both screens. After confirmation of receipt, the opponent's clock starts and the move disappears. The time control is 25 minutes plus 20 seconds per move. In the rapid event the time rate is 25 minutes plus 10 seconds a move.
Results:
Blindfold: Round 1: Anand beat Shirov; Kramnik beat Ivanchuk; Morozevich beat Van Wely; Vallejo Pons beat Topalov; Bareev drew with Gelfand; Leko lost to Svidler.
Rapid: Round 1: Ivanchuk beat Kramnik; Gelfand drew with Bareev; Svidler drew with Leko; Topalov drew with Vallejo Pons; Van Wely drew with Morozevich; Shirov lost to Anand.
Round 1 Combined Standings: 1. Anand 2.0; 2. Morozevich, Svidler and Vallejo Pons 1.5 each; 5. Kramnik, Bareev, Gelfand and Ivanchuk 1.0 each; 9. Leko, Topalov and Van Wely 0.5; 12. Shirov 0.
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