World No 2 Viswanathan Anand [Images] finished a distant fourth in the World Blitz chess championship, which was won by Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk of Russia [Images], in Rishon Le Zion, Israel.

The Russian won the tie-break game against compatriot Peter Svidler to pocket the coveted title.

After 15 gruelling rounds, both Grischuk and Svidler tallied 10.5 points each and in the ensuing tie-breaker the former proved superior with white pieces.

Scoring 10 points in all, Anand tied for the third spot along with Azerbaijan's Teimour Radjabov but finished fourth overall with his slightly inferior tie-break score.

The US $92,500 event was played on a round-robin basis between 16 players, with four minutes being allotted to both players and a two-second increment after every move.

Anand had a brilliant start with two victories, including one against Peter Svidler. However, the Indian ace missed the thread in the final stages of the event.

Before the last round, Anand, Radjabov, Svidler and Grischuk were in joint lead on 9.5 points but the final round saw Anand only managing a draw against Boris Gelfand of Israel while Radjabov achieved the same result against Etienne Bacrot of France [Images].

On the other hand, Svidler and Grischuk displayed top form to outwit Emil Sutovsky of Israel and Norway's Magnus Carlsen respectively. As a result both Svidler and Grischuk tied for the top spot and to determine the winner an Armageddon or sudden-death game was played in which Grischuk drew white and had to win the game as in case of a draw, Svidler would have won the championship.

However, the younger Russian kept his poise to win the last game after 63 moves.

Final placings:

1-2: Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler (both Rus) 10.5 each; 3-4: Teimour Radjabov (Aze), V Anand (Ind) 10 each; 5-6: Judit Polgar (Hun), Boris Gelfand (Isr) 9.5 each; 7. Etienne Bacrot (Fra) 8; 8: Magnus Carlsen (Nor) 7.5; 9-11: Sergey Erenburg, Emil Sutovsky (both Isr), Merab Gagunashvili (Geo) 7 each; 12: Michael Roiz (Isr) 6.5; 13: Ilia Smirin (Isr) 6; 14: Dmitry Gurevich (Usa) 4; 15-16: D Zoler, G Livshit (both Isr) 3.5 each.

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