Anand back on top in Credit Suisse tournament

Vishwanathan Anand played a calm, cool draw with Belarus grandmaster Boris Gelfand in the eighth round of the Credit Suisse International Grandmasters Chess tournament at the Congress Centre in Biel, Switzerland to lead the points table with just two more rounds left to play.

FIDE world champion Anatoly Karpov, who shared the lead with Anand at the end of the seventh round, was hampered in his bid to retain the title by a shock defeat at the hands of Joel Lautier of France.

Karpov, who holds the world record for most number of international tournaments won, generally likes to play safe. "I do not like to burn bridges behind me," he had said once. However, the 45-year-old veteran for once forgot his own maxim and played a reckless game against Lautier, in a bid to keep on par with Anand, and paid a heavy price for it.

Judging correctly that Karpov is uncomfortable against the King Pawn opening, Lautier drew his opponent into that game. Karpov - like Garri Kasparov against chess computer Deep Blue recently - got into trouble when he tried to counter with the Caro Kann defence.

Karpov soon found his king stuck in the centre. Lautier forced the world champion to weaken his kingside and Karpov, at this stage, uncharacteristically lost patience and grabbed Lautier's pawns on the queen file. Lautier, a former world junior champion, promptly came up with a brilliant sacrifice on the 26th move. Lautier handled the final part with precision, marching his pawns ahead remorselessly, and forced Karpov to resign the game on the 43rd move.

Meanwhile Anand, who had suffered a shock defeat in the previous round to Milov, went back to his favourite Queen's Gambit Accepted, playing black, against Gelfand who had beaten him at the same venue in 1993.

Anand kept his pieces active throughout, not hesitating to sacrifice his weak paw on the 23rd move rather than defend passively. Gelfand was visibly nervous despite the advantage of the pawn, and offered a draw to Anand who has not lost to the Belarus grandmaster after that one outing in 1993. The draw was agreed to after 32 moves.

20 year old international master Yannick Pelletier of Switzerland scored his maiden victory of the tournament when, playing black against countryman Vadim Milov in an irregular opening, he handled his king pawn brilliantly in the end game.

At the end of round eight, the points table reads as follows: Anand (5.5), Karpov (5), Gelfand (4.5), Lautier and Milov (3.5), Pelletier (2).