Anand beats Karjakin
Posted by masugly on March 23, 2008 in Uncategorized
World champion Viswanathan Anand thumped Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine in the blindfold and won his sixth round game 1.5-0.5 in the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament here.
Past the half-way stage in this 11-round event that has one rapid and one blindfold game in each round, the Indian ace now occupies sole second spot and also bridged the gap between him and the leader Levon Aronian of Armenia who played out draws with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan in both the games.
It is still a tight affair and there is no clear winner in sight. With five rounds still to go, Aronian is at the top of the combined points table on 7.5 while Anand is now close behind with seven points.
Five players are just half a point adrift of Anand at joint third. They are Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Peter Leko of Hungary, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
Anand misread an opening move in the blindfold game but thankfully there was no damage. The Indian ace mistakenly believed that Karjakin had moved his knight on the queen side when in fact it was on the king side and upon realising his mistake Anand was quick to recover.
Despite the mistake, by the 23rd move the writing was on the wall when Anand played a crushing rook move to tighten the noose around his opponent.
In the rapid game there was little for Karjakin as Anand yet again was on top from the beginning. However, it was not as bad as in the blindfold and somehow the Ukrainian youngster was able to maintain the balance. The game was eventually drawn.
