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Anand wows 'em in Germany

A day after both FIDE and the rival PCA installed him as number two in the world rankings, India's chess ace Vishwanathan Anand demonstrated exactly why.

His game against former world championship candidate Alexander Belyavsky was always going to be a humdinger. Former junior champions both, the two have thus far played ten games, and drawn only three of them, their scoreline before this game being 5-4 in favour of Anand.

Given their record of producing tough, result-oriented play, there was thus some disappointment when Belyavsky, playing white, opted for the Catalan Defence -- a dull, draw-producing opening.

Until Anand decided to turn things on its head, that is. Obviously hell-bent on making sure there were no further dull draws (thus far, of 24 games completed in the tournament, a mere 7 have produced results), Anand played an increasingly risky game.

As early as move 13, the Indian grandmaster deliberately left his central pawn hanging. The Slovakian, after some thought, grabbed the offering.

Six moves later, on 19, Anand livened things up further when he tossed a knight onto the sacrificial alter, in a deliberate bid to open up the game.

At this point, the other players taking part in the ongoing 26th Sparkassen Chess Meeting at Dortmund, Germany, left their boards and congregated around Anand's table, sensing the possibility of a sensational upset less than 24 hours after the Indian had been installed world number two.

Anand, however, played a brilliant brand of unconventional chess, going against established theory in the Catalan and so confusing his opponent that Belyavsky stumbled with a wrong move on 27.

By this point, Anand was going flat out, marching his king into the fray, throwing all he had into a flat out bid to take advantage of a weakness in white's back-file.

Belyavsky, despite being up by a pawn and a piece, gave up and offered the draw on move 31. As Anand strolled casually out of the hall, players and spectators alike broke into sustained applause, underlining the Indian's star quality.

Despite all his heroics, however, Anand, with 2.5 points, is a full point behind board leaders Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik (3.5 points apiece) followed by Michael Adams and Vassily Ivanchuk (3 apiece). In order to pull off his fourth tournament triumph of the year, thus, Anand will have to reverse the tournament's tendency, thus far, to throw up a large proportion of drawn games.

Asked why he had embarked on such a daring gamble, risking even his hard-won number two ranking, Anand said, "What to do? It was such a boring opening, something had to be done."

Vladimir Kramnik, meanwhile, dumped PCA challenger Alexy Shirov.

Shirov, who is shortly due to face Garri Kasparov in an 18-match encounter for the PCA world championship (both Anand and Kramnik preferred not to play the PCA rounds this year) has been playing unusual openings of late, presumably to avoid giving Kasparov any real clue to his possible strategy.

The Spaniard had, two months ago, beaten Kramnik with a king's pawn opening. This time, he pushed the queen pawn instead, and Kramnik promptly pushed him into an untenable Nimzo Indian Defence.

Shirov fought hard, even resorting to using his king to back up his attacks, but Kramnik ultimately prevailed in 64 moves.

Hungarian teenager Leko, meanwhile, did it again. Warned recently by tournament organisers in Madrid for playing for dull draws, he got together with Ivanchuk to produce perhaps the most boring draw of the tournament thus far.

The game started off as a Gruenfeld Defence, and both players methodically exchanged their major powers, until there was precious little left to play with.

21 moves later, both players shook hands on the draw they had been playing for since the first pawn push.

At the end of the fifth round, tournament organiser Juergen Grastat got the players together and told them that spectators have begun complaining about the preponderance of dull, boring draws that have marked play thus far.

Anand becomes world number two