Armenian GM holds Anand to a draw

V Krishnaswamy in New Delhi

Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw with some solid play by Armenian Grandmaster Smbat Lputian in the first game of the third round at the FIDE World Knockout Chess Championship in New Delhi on Sunday.

Anand had black pieces and the game ended in just over two and half hours after 19 moves. Clearly, Anand was content to follow his plan of the previous round. He had taken a quick draw with black pieces against Viktor Bologan of Moldova and then crushed him in the second game with white pieces.

On Monday Anand will have white pieces and be the odds-on favourite to take the match.

As the early results trickled in, Boris Gelfand of Israel was one of the winners. He beat Dutchman Jeroen Piket, while Evgeny Bareev of Russia beat Belarussian Aleksej Aleksandrov. Both Gelfand and Bareev had white pieces. They only need a draw to enter the fourth round.

The women's world champion, Xie Jun of China, also played out a draw in the first game of the third round with Russian Elena Zayac.

Anand did not want to stretch himself in a position that offered nothing to him or his opponent. Lputian probably still remembered his defeat at the Indian's hands at the Corus Chess Championship at Wijk Aan Zee in January this year.

The game followed the Slav defence and the first 13 moves were right out of the book. In fact, the moves may well have been played out in less than five minutes, but both wanted to take it easy. Black had an isolated c-pawn which was a weakness in a manner of speaking, while white had 'b' and 'e' pawns, but no pawns on 'c' and 'd'. With opposite colour bishops to add, there was no way either was getting an edge and the players decided on a draw.

"He [Lputian] played solid and it was all theory," said Anand, adding that there was no point in stretching in the position which was a clear draw. Lputian rated at 2598 won his first round game against Poland's Pawel Blehm (2510) and then put it across Sergei Rublevsky (2670) who is rated much higher.

The Armenian, while being a good player, often wastes winning positions. Like he did against Vladimir Kramnik, Nigel Short and Alexander Morozevich in the Wijk Aan Zee tournament in January. He finished joint thirteenth out of 14 players, while Anand, Kramnik and Leko were joint second.

Lputian had got an entry at the Corus Super GM tournament in Wijk Aan Zee by winning the B Group in 1999. Interestingly, India's possible future star, P Harikrishna, has got an invitation for the B Group in January 2001.

Meanwhile, Poland's Bartlomiej Macieja also drew his first game in the third round with Alexander Beliavsky of Slovenia. This was also a quick draw in just 17 moves. The winner of this match is due to meet the winner of Anand-Lptuian match.

Macieja, in the second round, had stunned Michael Krasenkow (2702) in the longest match so far of the championships. Macieja had won in the fourth game of the sudden death late last evening.

Michael Adams of England took a quick draw with black pieces against Alex Yermolinsky of the United States. Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan drew with Vladislav Tkachiev of France, while Jaan Ehlvest of Estonia, who had sent Vassily Ivanchuk packing in the second round, settled for a draw with Sergi Movsesian of the Czech Republic. Ehlvest had white pieces, but he had beaten Ivanchuk with black pieces too.

Alexei Shirov, the Latvia-born Spanish player, drew with white pieces against Mikhail Gurevich, who now represents Belgium.

UNI