World champion Viswanathan Anand [Images] got a mixed start in the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament as he won one and lost one game against Peter Leko of Hungary in the first round in Nice, on Sunday.

Anand won the blindfold game in great style but his form in his favourite variant of the game -� rapid chess -- was found wanting as Leko struck back and equalised the score.

After the conclusion of the opening round of 12-players round robin event with one blindfold and one rapid game in each round, Armenian Levon Aronian emerged as the early leader winning both his games against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine.

Aronian, in fact took a full point lead over his nearest rivals including Anand with his fantastic effort as all other matches of the day ended in a 1-1 score.

Magnus Carlsen [Images] of Norway and Gata Kamsky of US shared one win each like Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir Kramnik [Images] while Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria drew both his games against Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.

In the other match, Corus champion Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine could not break the ice against Chinese Wang Yue and drew both games.

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