Viswanathan Anand made an indifferent start to his campaign at the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament, losing to Russian Alexander Morozevich in the first round in Monaco.

The five-time champion lost the first blindfold game against last year's joint-winner Morozevich and then could not recover enough in the return rapid game to finally sign peace.

Anand lost to Morozevich from a seemingly innocuous opening. The Russian, who has done well in the past editions of the blindfold section, was in excellent form yet again, catching Anand unawares in the late middle game stages.

The Reti opening gave Anand an easy game but Morozevich tightened the noose in the middle game. The Indian ace made the final mistake on the 41st move while in a difficult position and the Russian left no chances to clinch the issue seven moves later.

In the return rapid game, Anand tried to make amends against Morozevich's French defense but the Russian showed good defensive moves to keep the Indian at bay.

After regulation exchanges, the players arrived at a level minor piece endgame where peace was signed after 36 moves.

Meanwhile, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Levon Aronian of Armenia emerged as early leaders in the 12-player event.

Ivanchuk defeated Dutchman Loek Van Wely in both variants of the game while Aronian proved too good against Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain.

Ivanchuk scored two tactical victories over Van Wely, who appeared completely out of sort. The blindfold was a delight for the spectators as Ivanchuk sacrificed a piece to launch a decisive attack, while in the rapid the Ukrainian opened the Pandora's box based on a weak 'back-rank'.

In contrast, Aronian was a bit lucky to beat Vallejo Pons in both the games. The blindfold was a Semi Slav wherein the Spaniard simply lost track of his pieces and blundered when the position was complicated. And in the rapid Pons he tried too hard to win a slightly better endgame only to be caught on the wrong foot.

As things stand, world champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Morozevich are right behind the two leaders on 1.5 points and a pack of four players Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Peter Svidler of Russia, Peter Leko of Hungary and Boris Gelfand of Israel are another half point adrift on one point.

Anand stands joint-ninth after the first round on a half point along with Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan while Vallejo Pons and Van Wely are at the bottom of the standings, yet to open their account.

Twenty games or ten rounds still remain in the round-robin event in which one blindfold and one rapid game is played in each round.

Results round 1:

Blindfold: Levon Aronian (Arm) beat Francisco Vallejo Pons (Esp), Peter Leko (Hun) lost to Peter Svidler (Rus), Boris Gelfand (Isr) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor), Teimour Radjabov (Aze) lost to Vladimir Kramnik (Rus), Loek Van Wely (Ned) lost to Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr), Alexander Morozevich (Rus) beat Viswanathan Anand (Ind).

Rapid: Vallejo Pons lost to Aronian, Svidler lost to Leko Carlsen drew with Gelfand, Kramnik drew with Radjabov, Ivanchuk beat Van Wely, Anand drew with Morozevich.

Standings after first round: 1-2. Aronian, Ivanchuk 2 each; 3-4. Kramnik, Morozevich 1.5 each; 5-8. Carlsen, Gelfand, Leko, Svidler 1.0 each; 9-10. Anand, Radjabov 0.5 each 11-12. Vallejo Pons, Van Wely 0.