Rest of the World defeat
Russia in chess match

Powered by a brilliant performance from Spaniard Alexei Shirov, the Rest of the World team recorded an emphatic 52-48 victory over Russia in the 'Match of the New Century', which concluded at the State Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, on Wednesday.

After another 5-5 draw -- the fourth in the match -- the World team tallied a commendable 52 points out of a possible 100 against Russia's 48, to win by a convincing margin of four points.

The World team's achievement is excellent given the fact that they started as underdogs against the mighty Russians who had three former World champions in Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Alexander Khalifman besides Braingames Match-winner Vladimir Kramnik.

This is the first time that the Russians lost in three events played so far. In the inaugural year, the erstwhile Soviet Union won 20.5-19.5, in Belgrade in 1970, while the next time they did even better, winning 21-19, in London, in 1984.

It was the ninth round that cast the dye decisively in the World team's favour as they stretched their lead to four points from the overnight three.

Starting the day with a nice cushion, former World champion Vishwanathan Anand played out an easy draw against Kramnik, with the black pieces.

Kasparov, who clearly struggled with his form in the match right through, failed to improve his points tally substantially and had to be content with draws in the last two games against youngest World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine and Anand. Surprisingly, Kasparov scored just one victory and suffered three dfeats in the match.

Shirov was in ominous form on the last day, winning both his matches convincingly. Starting out against Grishchuk on a winning note after an intense struggle, he carried the day well by squeezing Peter Svidler in a keenly-contested game to emerge the best player in the match with a score of 7/10.

For the Russians, Karpov put in a lot of effort, winning both the last two games against Nigel Short of England and Judith Polgar of Hungary but that was already too late.

Complete Results Set 10 (Russians unless specified):

Ilia Smirin (Isr) lost to Alexey Dreev; Evgeny Bareev drew Peter Leko (Hun); Boris Gelfand (Isr) drew Alexander Grischuk; Anatoly Karpov beat Judit Polgar (Hun); Viswanathan Anand (Ind) drew Garry Kasparov; Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) drew Vladimir Kramnik; Alexander Morozevich drew Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr); Teimour Radjabov (Aze) beat Vadim Zvjaginsev; Alexander Khalifman drew Nigel Short (Eng); Alexei Shirov (Esp) beat Peter Svidler.

Set 9: Dreev drew Radjabov; Leko beat Morozevich; Grischuk lost to Shirov; Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Geo) drew Khalifman; Kramnik drew Anand; Kasparov drew Ponomariov; Ivanchuk drew Bareev; Rublevsky drew Smirin; Short lost to Karpov; Svidler drew Boris Gelfand (Isr): 1/2-1/2.

Top Individual scores: Shirov: 7/10; Morozevich, Bareev, Ponomariov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand - 6/10.