Anand gets one up on Karpov

World champion Vishwanathan Anand made amends for his miss in the rapid game and crashed through the defences of Russian Anatoly Karpov in the blindfold game to begin his campaign in the 10th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament, in Monte Carlo, on a winning note.

Anand, who drew the rapid game, made a mince-meat of his opponent in the blindfold to take the first round tie 1.5-0.5.

Grandmasters Peter Leko of Hungary, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and defending champion Alexei Shirov of Spain became early leaders in this 11-round 22-match tournament with comprehensive 2-0 victories over their respective opponents.

The players play one rapid and one blindfold game in every round. The rapid game starts with 25 minutes with 10 seconds added after each move while in blindfold the addition is 20 seconds.

Playing black in the rapid game, Anand opted for the Queen's Indian defence and the game was a repetition of the one he played against GM Jan Timman of Holland in the last round of the Wijk Ann Zee tournament last year.

Anand played the opening moves in a blitzkrieg mood and Karpov's success in this game was not losing like Timman did! Anand had no problems once the queens got traded and a balanced endgame arose after the 25th move where the peace treaty was signed.

In the blindfold, however, Anand made mince meat of his opponent in the Advance variation of the Caro Kann defence with white pieces.

Karpov could not manage even a semblance of counterplay as Anand initiated an attack against the king with the help of pieces and a theoretically established pawn roller.

Karpov made a blunder on 22nd move when he moved his defensive knight from the center and Anand's Queen made forays in the opposition camp decisively.

The game lasted 24 moves.

Though playing his first tournament of this kind, Peter Leko showed he was no mug when it came to delivering the goods in different varieties of the game.

His first game against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine featured the Sicilian Pelikan defence and he outplayed his opponent from a level position through an imaginatively crafted attack against the king.

In the blindfold game, Leko had the advantage of white pieces and Ivanchuk surprisingly opted for the Polugaevsky variation of the Sicilian defence. After cutting down the counterplay on queenside, Leko went for the king yet again and capitalised the open king knight file to his advantage.

Shirov is a dangerous campaigner on the chequered board as GM Loek Van Wely of The Netherlands might have realised. In the first game on rapid play rules, Van Wely failed to put up a show despite winning three pieces for his Queen in the French defence with black pieces. Shirov collected a handful of pawns to romp home.

In the blindfold Van Wely overlooked a Knight fork and lost a rook to lose rather tamely from an enterprising position arising out of a Queens Gambit accepted.

Topalov handed a similar beating to debutante GM Zoltan Almasi of Hungary. In the first game the Sicilian Pelikan ensured Topalov a slightly better endgame with black pieces which he converted with perfect technique.

The second (blindfold) game was a Ruy Lopez and Topalov got his pieces rolling on the kingside to decide matters in 36 moves.

Braingames match winner GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia defeated GM Jeroen Piket of Hungary with a 1.5-0.5 margin while the honours between GM Ljubomir Ljubojevic of Yugoslavia and GM Boris Gelfand of Israel were split 1-1.

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