Defending champion and world rapid chess champion Viswanathan Anand continued to lead the standings in rapid section of the Amber Rapid and Blindfold chess tournament in Monaco. Overall he is in sixth position, which can be improved considerably with good results in the last two rounds against Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand.

Anand was once again engaged in a double draw, this time against Alexei Shirov, with whom he generally has a very good one-to-one record.

Anand is currently leading the Rapid standings with six points, and he is followed by Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko and Evegeny Bareev, who are half a point behind.

Both Kramnik and Morozevich have 12 points each and lead overall standings. They are followed by Ivanchuk and Peter Leko with 11.0 each and Evegney Bareev with 10.5. Anand and Peter Svidler have 10 points each.

In the last two rounds, Anand has played all four draws and before that lost to Alexander Morozevich. Morozevich has exploded into full form with three successive 2-0 results that have catapulted him into joint lead with Vladimir Kramnik. In all the temperamental Russian has scored such result, the first having been against Vassily Ivanchuk in the first round. In the last three rounds, he has beaten Anand, Paco Vallejo and Veselin Topalov in both games.

In the blindfold, Anand had white in a Ruy Lopez closed and the game lasted a mere 21 moves before the players agreed upon a draw. Anand failed to get anything out of the opening when he missed a clever rearrangement of the black pieces starting with 16.Ne7. Black's action allowed a release and that led to a draw.

Anand later said, "I should have done something to counter these actions, but I didn't. Our conversation afterwards was longer than the game itself."

The rapid game was another Ruy Lopez, this time with Anand behind the black pieces. Once again the balance was maintained.

The Indian GM said, "There were some points of interest, but I've forgotten what they were."

Moro, who is one of the most dangerous players with black pieces and he show how. In the blindfold the Russian with black adopted a rare side-variation of the Slav that he has employed on earlier occasions against Kasparov, a match that ended in a draw, and beaten Kramnik in. Topalov made a few mistakes and Moro capitalised to win comfortably.

The rapid game was Sicilian Najdorf and almost 'romantic'. Moro was not sure if his sacrifice 13.g4, purely played on intuition, was correct, but he definitely deemed it promising in a rapid game. Next he played 21.Ncd5, a great move stirring up fantastic complications. Black found it hard to defend and Moro had more than one winning line.

One of the big points of interest in ninth round was whether Kramnik would extend his lead. In the blind, he outplayed Evegeny Bareev in a Reti Opening with black and things looked as if he might go for another win in rapid.

But Kramnik suffered a totally unexpected defeat. He was pressing for an advantage with small means and in that he got himself into danger and went too far and ended up in an inferior position that Bareev handled with great expertise and won in 77 moves from a French-Rubinstein.

The last rest day on Monday was used by players to either relax and indulge in sight-seeing as Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko, Peter Svidler and Veselin Toplaov did.

Results of Round 9 (Blindfold): Svidler drew with Leko; Topalov lost to Morozevich; Bareev lost to Kramnik; Vallejo drew with Gelfand; Van Wely drew with Ivanchuk; Anand drew with Shirov.

Standings (after Round 9 Blindfold):1. Morozevich 7.0; 2. Kramnik 6.5; 3. Ivanchuk 6.0; 4. Leko 5.5; 5. Svidler and Bareev 5.0; 7. Shirov and Anand 4.0; 9. Van Wely and Topalov 3.5; 11. Gelfand and Vallejo Pons 2.0.

Results of the Round 9 (Rapid): Leko drew with Svidler; Morozevich beat Topalov; Kramnik lost to Bareev; Gelfand beat Vallejo; Ivanchuk beat Van Wely; Shirov drew with Anand.

Standings (after Round 9 Rapid): 1. Anand 6.0; 2. Bareev, Leko and Kramnik 5.5; 5. Svidler, Morozevich and Ivanchuk 5.0; 8. Topalov 4.5; 9. Gelfand 4.0; 10. Shirov 3.5; 11. Van Wely 3.0; 12. Vallejo Pons 1.5.

Standings (after Round 9 Combined): 1. Morozevich and Kramnik 12.0; 3. Ivanchuk and Leko 11.0; 5. Bareev 10.5; 6. Svidler and Anand 10.0; 8. Topalov 8.0; 9. Shirov 7.5; 10. Van Wely 6.5; 11. Gelfand 6.0; 12. Vallejo Pons 3.5.