Anand, Adams draw game 1 of semi-final; Shirov wins

World No. 2 Vishwanathan Anand drew the first game of the four-game World chess championship semi-final against Michael Adams of England on Tuesday.

The Indian Grandmaster, who was playing with black pieces, accepted a draw offer by Adams after 29 moves.

The duo will again meet for the second game of the semi-final on Wednesday. The four-game semi-final will be played between December 12-16.

In the other semi-final, Alexei Shirov of Spain beat Alexander Grischuk of Russia in the first game.

In a rarely-played Petroff defence, the Anand handed Adams a slight edge, but then defended well to achieve a comfortable position in the middlegame before settling for a 0.5-0.5 verdict with three games of the semi-final still to go.

On the other board, Spain's Alexei Shirov made a stunning start with a hard-fought 44-move win over Russian Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk.

The four-game semi-final will provide both the players an opportunity to play with white pieces twice, and if the points are still tied after four days, the match will be decided in the set of tie-breaker games.

Women's world Champion Xie Jun of China made a strong bid to retain her title as she downed compatriot Qin Kanying in the first of the four-game final.

Interestingly, both the games where an outright result was achieved on Tuesday, were played with the Ruy Lopez opening, which has proved quite profitable throughout the tournament.

Anand, who has been lucky playing his first game with black, was pleasantly surprised to get the dark pieces to start his semi-final.

In a Petroff defence, the Indian Grandmaster defended well and overall enjoyed the luxury of relaxing while Adams made all out efforts to strike.

Anand refused to go under pressure and offered no room to the Englishman, and the positions became unclear in the ending.

The Indian, though subdued, kept his bishop and queen active throughout the game and forced draw on the 29th move.

The Shirov-Grischuk match was hotly-contested and despite the loss, the 17-year-old Russian Grandmaster drew praise from his opponent for his gutsy play.

"He (Grischuk) played excellent and attacked well. He is one good player and has bright future," the Latvia-born Shirov said after the win.

Shirov opened in Ruy Lopez and got an advantage from the start, but Grischuk defended well and at times surprised Shirov with some novelty moves.

The Spaniard went for the kill in the middle-game but the novelties from Grischuk put pressure on his queen and bishop file.

This forced Shirov to sacrifice his queen, but then on he played with clinical precision to corner the Russian.

In a rook ending Shirov was the clear winner as he went for the king side attack in subduing an in-form Grischuk.

Xie Jun also opened with Spanish Ruy Lopez and earned a clear advantage in the opening itself. The defending champion went on to capitalise on it though the middlegame was evenly-balanced.

The Spanish opening game then tranposed into king and pawn ending as Kanying resigned to hand 1-0 lead to Jun.