Anand in third round; Sasikiran loses

Super Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand dished out a glimpse of his mastery for the first time in Delhi when he outmanoeuvred Moldovan GM Viktor Bologan to move into the third round of the FIDE World chess championship on Friday.

The World number two Indian, who was held to a draw by Bologan in the first game of the second round on Thursday, as expected started with the Ruy Lopez Breyer variation taking an upperhand in the opening itself.

After Anand won his game, Sasikiran gave Indian fans a heartbreak as he bowed out of the race, losing to the Netherlands' promising star GM van Wely.

Sasikiran, who needed to win to take the match into the tie-breaker, lost his second game to van Wely after starting with Kings Indian defence.

Tournament favourite Anand had total control on the game and he started his attack in the middlegame by eyeing Bologan's kingside.

In a classy combination Anand kept his piece in front of Bologan's pawn which the Moldovan never had chance to capture.

Anand was a pawn up in the endgame with a clear winning position. At this point, he could have played a positional chess and won, but the Indian went for further attack forcing Bologan to resign when faced with an unavoidable checkmate.

Anand's energetic play, combined with precision that translated into victory, sent chess enthusiasts in raptures as the Indian crossed first hurdle in his quest to become world champion.

Anand now plays either GM Smbat Lputian of Armenia or Sergei Rublevsky of Russia in the third round. Lputian was leading 1-0 in their two-game encounter.

In a classical variation, van Wely attacked the queenside which is a normal plan for white in such set up. The Dutchman had an advantageous position from the opening and he converted the position smoothly in victory on the 48th move.

In another high-profile upset, Armenia's Vladimir Akopian, the finalist at Las Vegas championship last year, was foxed by Aleksej Alexandrov of Belarus with white pieces.

Akopian, who lost to defending world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia in a tense final, found nothing going his way after having split the point on Thursday in the first game of the second round.

Etienne Bacrot of France, who came unscathed through the first round tie-break, again made it to the decider drawing his second game. He will engage in 25-minute time control rapid play on Saturday to break the ice.

Bacrot, playing black made bold moves and drew with Peter Svidler of Russia in an exciting game.

GM Grigory Serper of the United States made it to the third round with a 2-0 win over countrymate Alexander Ivanov.

Other stars who cruised into the third round were Bulgaria's Vaselin Topalov, Jeroen Piket of the Netherlands and Peter Leko of Hungary.

Topalov downed Andrei Kharlov; Leko outwitted Sergey Volkov of Russia and Piket beat Vladislav Nevednichy of Romania.

Alexey Dreev of Russia, Hungarian Zoltan Almasi, Michael Gurevich of Belgium and American Boris Gulko all drew their two-game round to get into the tie-breakers.

In the women's section Corina Peptan of Romania defeated former world champion Maia Chiburdnidze of Russia in the second game of the second round to make it to the third round.

Chiburdnidze, who was world champion for 14 consecutive years, had lost yesterday's first game with white pieces for a major upset of the tournament.

Woman Grandmaster Almira Skripchenko-Lautier of Moldova outplayed South African Marany Mayer after gaining the edge in the opening which she solely converted into a win to qualify for the third round.

Women's World champion Xie Jun was held to a draw and taken into tie-break by Svetlana Matveeva of Russia despite the Chinese having held slight edge in the ending.

It was rook and opposite colour bishop ending having slight edge in the position but the Russian defended correctly and forced Xie to sign the peace treaty in 45 moves.