WijK Aan Zee: World
champion Viswanathan Anand outmaneuvered Russian Vladimir
Kramnik in the 12th round to rise to the third spot in the
elite group 'A' of the Corus Chess Tournament here.
After his second victory in three rounds, Anand moved to
third spot in the overall standings on seven points out of a
possible 12.
Anand had earlier beaten Alexei Shirov of Spain when he
was leading the tournament and Kramnik too was at the helm
till he met his nemesis in the Indian ace.
Anand overpowered Kramnik with his wily maneuvers. The
Russian went for the Petroff defense with black pieces and
found the going tough after the 20th move and then chose
something that appeared solid.
But a white exchange sacrifice not long after proved it
was far from solid enough.
"Kramnik looked at me with raised eyebrows. He seemed to
think we'd had a threefold repetition. I had to point out that
there was a pawn on f7 the first time round," he said.
By then it was clear that Kramnik was in deep trouble and
Anand wrapped the issue in 45 moves.
Asked whether he felt he was unable to play all out
because he wanted to keep some of his prepared opening secrets
for the title match against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Anand
said, "In the tournament I play 13 different people, in a
match I play just one. It's a completely different thing."
Meanwhile Magnus Carlsen of Norway played out a draw with
Peter Leko of Hungary to emerge as the sole leader on eight
points, a half point clear of Kramnik and Shirov.
In the final round, Carlsen meets Caruana Fabiano of
Italy while Anand will take on Loek van Wely of Holland.
In the 'B' group Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri played out
a draw with Varuzhan Akobian of United States to remain a full
point adrift of the nearest rivals. Giri on 8.5 points is
followed by Ni Hua and Erwin l'Ami who both have 7.5 points
apiece.
Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi suffered a defeat at the
hands of Grandmaster Tomi Nyvback of Finland. It was a
Grunfeld defense wherein Negi misplayed the middle game to
reach a heavy pieces inferior ending. Nyback won in 41 moves.
P Harikrishna played out a draw with Emil Sutovsky of
Israel from the black side of a Caro Kann defense. The game
was drawn in 38 moves following heaps of exchanges in the
middle game.
Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta defeated compatriot Soumya
Swaminathan from a Classical Sicilian in the 'C' group.
LI Chao of China won this section with one round to spare
after taking a draw with Stefan Kuipers of Holland. The
Chinese player enjoys a 1.5 points lead with 9 points in this
section. Abhijeet and Ray Robson of United States share the
second spot here having 7.5 points apiece.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, January 31, 2010, 12:12