Anand shocked in
FIDE Grand Prix
Former World champion Vishwanathan Anand was surprised in the FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament in Dubai on Thursday evening.
The Indian Grandmaster was beaten by Georgian Grandmaster Zurab Azmaiparashvili in the second round 2.5-1.5, after a tie-breaker, which he lost 0.5-1.5.
Amazingly the two top favourites in the event have lost the right to
fight for the winner's crown after the first two rounds itself.
In a first round on Wednesday, youngest-ever World
champion Ruslan Ponomariov was shown the exit by women's World champion Zhu Chen of China.
Anand will now play for the 9th to 16th positions.
It was a nightmare for Anand in the second game of
the tie-break, which he lost with black pieces. The opening was a
Benoni defence set-up employed by Anand. Azmaiparashvili went
for an off-beat variation to let Anand get dynamic
equilibrium. It was on the 13th move that Anand ensured a
bloody battle by a temporary exchange sacrifice that netted
him a pawn after the dust had settled.
However, in the process the Indian ace left his pieces on the
queenside unattended and Azmaiparashvili cashed in on the
opportunity to strike in the center decisively.
With Azmaiparashvili tightening the noose, Anand was
forced to part with one piece. He lost in 41 moves.
Anand found himself in a 1-1 deadlock after going down in the
second game. He had won the first game rather comfortably but a blunder
cost him the second game.
The first two games were played under Rapid time control
but the tie-breaker was played under the Blitz
Chess rules.
Meanwhile, another former World champion Anatoly Karpov
of Russia ended Chinese women's World champion Zhu Chen's
winning run with a 2-0 whitewash.
Trying to carve a niche for himself in rapid chess, Grandmaster Peter Leko of Hungary downed GM Joel Lautier of France by a 1.5-0.5 margin.
Leko played a fine positional game in the
second game to win the match after drawing the first game.
Anand blundered away his one point lead over
Azmaiparashvili after comprehensively outplaying his opponent
in the first game. It was an English opening game where
nothing went right for Azmaiparashvili. Anand slowly seized
the initiative in the later stages in the middlegame and
obtained a passed pawn on the queen side to win a rook by
force. The rest was child's play and Anand won after 42 moves.
However, in the second game Anand squandered away an
equal position arising out of a Pirc defence and allowed
Azmaiparashili to finish the game in style with a piece
sacrifice in the queenless middlegame. This game lasted a mere
32 moves.
Results (second round):
Zhu, Chen (CHN) - Karpov, Anatoly (RUS) - 0-2 (0-1, 0-1)
Dreev, Alexey (RUS) - Georgiev, Kiril (BUL) - 1-3 (0.5, 0.5, tie-break: 0-1, 0-1)
Leko, Peter (HUN) - Lautier, Joel (FRA) - 1.5-0.5 (0.5, 1-0)
Khalifman, Alexander (RUS) - Topalov, Veselin (BUL) - 0.5-1.5 (0-1, 0.5)
Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) - Radjabov, Teimour (AZE) - 3-1 (1-0, 0-1, tie-break: 1-0, 1-0)
Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) - Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) - 0.5-1.5 (0.5, 0-1)
Short, Nigel D. (ENG) - Shirov, Alexei (ESP) - 1-3 (0.5, 0.5, tie-break: 0-1, 0-1)
Azmaiparashvili, Zurab (GEO) - Anand, Vishwanathan (IND) - 2.5-1.5 (0-1, 1-0, tie-break: 0.5, 1-0)
