India's top-ranked chess player and reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand emerged as the sole leader after playing draws in both the blind and rapid format with former world champion Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov in the third round of the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament in Nice, France on Monday.
It’s good that Anand is having a good touch right from the start but there is still eight rounds still remaining in the tournament that features one blindfold and one rapid game in each round. The championship is still wide open and whosoever maintains consistency over the next ten days will emerge as winner.
With the help of these couple of draws, Anand took his combined tally to four points and is now clearly half point ahead of his nearest rivals Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Armenia’s Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Topalov who all are placed at joint second position with 3.5 points each.
Ukraine’s Sergey Karjakin and Shakhriayar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan are at the third position with half point behind. The highlight the day was the stunning victory of Mamedyarov over Kramnik with black pieces that too using a rarely played Budapest Gambit in the rapid game.
Anand is also the sole leader in the rapid section with a tally of 2.5 points and enjoying half point lead over Aronian and Topalov while the blindfold section led by Ivanchuk, Calrsen and Russian Alexander Morozevich who all have 2 points apiece.
Both Topalov and Anand had a heavy theoretical discussion in one of the main lines of the Catalan Opening. White seemed to be doing well, especially after 16.c6, a move that Anand admitted he had missed, but most probably Topalov’s advantage was less than it seemed.
World Champion defended well and after 59 moves they settled for draw. The rapid game saw another Caro-Kann by Topalov. And one he didn’t complain about. The Bulgarian got into a good position and felt that at some point he should have fought for more.
But with only 40 seconds left on the clock the Bulgarian dismissed this idea. In the end he forced a draw with a repetition of moves.
"I didn't want to play blitz, especially not against Anand," Topalov smilingly said while quoting in the official website.
ROUND THREE RESULTS
Blind
Mamedyarov-Kramnik 1/2-1/2 Topalov-Anand 1/2-1/2 Leko-Morozevich 1/2-1/2 Aronian-Gelfand 1/2-1/2 Carlsen-Karjakin 1-0 Van Wely-Ivanchuk 1/2-1/2
Rapid
Kramnik-Mamedyarov 0-1 Anand - Topalov 1/2-1/2 Morozevich-Leko 0-1 Rapid Gelfand-Aronian 1-0 Karjakin-Carlsen 1-0 Ivanchuk-Van Wely 0-1
|
|
Read More: Anand
Comments:
