The Hindu : Anand holds Peter

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 21, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anand holds Peter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 20. Viswanathan Anand and Russia's Peter Svidler produced a marathon 80-move blindfold deadlock on the opening day of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament at the Hotel Grand in Monte Carlo on Saturday.

In a unique format where the players face each other in a blindfold game followed by a rapid encounter, Evgeny Bareev and Veselin Topalov won with black pieces. Bareev took care of Spanish champion Francisco Vallejo in 38 moves and Topalov scored a 46-move victory over Dutch champion Loek van Wely.

Anand and Svidler, ranked three and four in the world, kept the audience enthralled for nearly two hours. Anand tried in vain to cash in on an extra pawn. But in an ending involving a rook, opposite-colour bishops and pawns Svidler defended the position accurately to deny Anand a winning start to his title defence.

In the second session of blindfold games, Alexie Shirov faced Peter Leko, Alexander Morozevich met Vassily Ivanchuk and Vladimir Kramnik encountered Boris Gelfand.

The results (First round, Blindfold): Viswanathan Anand drew with Peter Svidler; Francisco Vallejo lost to Evgeny Bareev; Loek van Wely lost to Veselin Topalov.

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