The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Anand loses to Topalov

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 20, 2006

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anand loses to Topalov

NEW DELHI: Viswanathan Anand surrendered to World champion Veselin Topalov in an eventful seventh round action in the Mtel Masters chess tournament in Sofia on Thursday.

With Topalov avenging the loss suffered in the second round, overnight leader Gata Kamsky (five points) enlarged his lead to one point over Anand by drawing with Frenchman Etienne Bacrot in 52 moves of Slav Defence.

Playing white, Anand faced a belligerent Topalov who sacrificed a bishop and a knight for a rook and two pawns to expose the Indian's castled king.

After further simplification in this Sicilian Scheveningen game, Topalov's rook and connected kingside passed pawns proved too much for Anand's bishop and knight. Anand gave up on the 61st move.

In the day's other decisive game, Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov posted his first victory of the event by overpowering Russia's Peter Svidler in 53 moves of Sicilian Paulsen.

The results (seventh round): Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 4) lost to Veselin Topalov (Bul, 3.5); Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 2.5) drew with Gata Kamsky (USA, 5); Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr, 2.5) bt Peter Svidler (Rus, 3.5). Eighth round pairings: Kamsky vs Anand; Svidler vs Bacrot; Topalov vs Ponomariov.

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