Anand loses to Adams

Former World champion Vishwanathan Anand was defeated by Britain's Michael Adams in round six of the Linares chess tournament.

Anand, who seems to have been deserted by his form, had drawn four of his earlier rounds at the tournament.

Anand stood slightly worse on the black side of a French defence for almost the entire game but the draw seemed obtainable till he inexplicably weakened his kingside pawns and lost his h-pawn.

Adams pushed his own h-pawn to h7 and Anand resigned on move 44.

In another match, former World champion Garry Kasparov of Russia came close to beating FIDE World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, but settled for a draw.

The results leave Adams and Kasparov tied for the lead with three points in five games. The seven-player tournament is a double round-robin due to end March 10.

In a battle between two Spaniards, Alexei Shirov tried hard to squeeze the life slowly out of fellow-countryman Francisco Vallejo. But Vallejo hung on to draw in 33 moves.