The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Anand scores first win; Negi draws

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 22, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Anand scores first win; Negi draws

WIJK ANN ZEE, JAN. 21. Viswanathan Anand turned Alexander Morozevich's ambitious offensive into a misadventure for a much-needed victory in the Corus chess tournament here on Thursday.

Winless in the first four rounds, Anand finally struck with black pieces to force the Russian Grandmaster on the losing side for the fourth successive round here. The victory took Anand's tally to 2.5 points. Anand's was the first decisive result after three other matches ended with honours even. Later, lowest seed Cuba's Lazaro Bruzon brought down Nigel Short and tasted his first win in the competition.

In Queen's Pawn Opening, Morozevich looked too eager to end his three-match losing streak and played too aggressively with white. He gave up a pawn on the 13th move and offered a knight three moves later. Anand took the knight and invited a queenside offensive. As Anand defended well, Morozevich sacrificed another minor piece in desperation. Anand promptly forced the exchange of queens to further diminish the Russian's hopes of survival. Morozevich, down two pieces, played on for another 10 moves before accepting defeat in 41 moves.

The much awaited clash between Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik ended as a draw in 28 moves. Last year, the two met in the World Classical chess title-clash where Kramnik won the final round to end the 14-match contest at seven points each and retained the title.

In GM `C', Parimarjan Negi pulled off another creditable draw to reach two points from five rounds. He withstood a kingside offensive from Dutch IM Manuel Bosboom and drew after 33 turns, following repetition of moves.

The results: Fifth round: GM `A': Alexander Morozevich (Rus) (0.5) lost to Viswanathan Anand (2.5); Lazaro Bruzon (Cub) (3) bt Nigel Short (Eng) (2.5); Veselin Topalov (Bul) (3) drew with Alexander Grischuk (Rus) (3); Ivan Sokolov (Ned) (1.5) drew with Loek van Wely (Ned) (2.5); Peter Leko (Hun) (3.5) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) (2.5); Peter Svidler (Rus) (1.5) drew with Ruslan Ponomariov (Rus) (3); Judit Polgar (Hun) (2.5) drew with Michael Adams (Eng) (3.5).

GM `C': Harmen Jonkman (Ned) (3) bt Leon Pliester (Ned) (1.5); Natalia Zhukova (Ukr) (3.5) bt Joost Wempe (Ned) (1); Vladimir Georgiev (Mkd) (4) bt Wouter Spoelman (Ned) (3); Evgeny Alekseev (Rus) (4) drew with Alexey Korotylev (Rus) (3.5); Tea Lanchava (Ned) (2) lost to Zeinab Mamedjarova (Aze) (1.5); Erwin L'Ami (Ned) (3) lost to Bianca Muhren (Ned) (1.5); Parimarjan Negi (2) drew with Manuel Bosboom (Ned) (1.5).

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