Viswanathan Anand [Images] suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Russian turned American Gata Kamsky in the third round of the Mtel Masters international chess tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria.

After two black victories in the first two rounds, Anand did not use his first white in the event well enough and succumbed to what was the second defeat against Kamsky in under six months time.

The other two games of the category-20 super tournament ended in draws as Frenchman Etienne Bacrot opened his account by holding Russian Peter Svidler while World champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria took his second draw in three days signing peace with former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine.

With seven rounds still to come in the 6-players double round robin tournament, Kamsky snatched the lead from Anand after another brilliant endgame effort and took his tally to 2.5 points out of a possible three.

Anand slipped to joint second spot and now shares it with Svidler on 2 points while Topalov and Ponomariov share the fourth position jointly on one point. Bacrot is still in the cellar on a half point.

Earlier during the Corus super tournament held in January last also, Kamsky had spoiled Anand's party and only a late onslaught had helped the Indian finish tied first along side Topalov.

It was a similar story this time also as Anand slipped from a nearly innocuous position and made a fatal error leading to disaster.

The Indian, playing with white pieces, had employed the Closed Ruy Lopez and Kamsky was slightly worse even as the pieces changed hands at regular intervals.

The players arrived at a rook and pawns endgame that was at least equal for Anand but a few inaccuracies led to a won king and pawns endgame for Kamsky who won after 57 moves.

Topalov played out a 66-moves draw with Ponomariov, who played the white side of an Anti Meran. It was in fact a hard fought game where Topalov struggled for quite some time before finding a piece sacrifice in the endgame to keep himself going. Finding no way out to improve his position Ponomariov took the draw vide repetition of moves.

Bacrot-Svidler ended similarly vide repetition too but much earlier when the former realised he did not have much against the Grunfeld defense of Svidler. For the records the game lasted 31 moves.

Results round 3:

Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 0.5) drew with Peter Svidler (Rus, 2); Viswanathan Anand ( Ind, 2) lost to Gata Kamsky (Usa, 2.5); Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr, 1) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 1).

Standings after round 3: 1. Kamsky 2.5; 2-3. Svidler, Anand 2 each; 4-5. Ponomariov, Topalov 1 each; 6. Bacrot 0.5.

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