Anand Beats Kramnik

By Arvind Aaron

The top seed Viswanathan Anand bounced back in the seventh round by scoring a breezy 20-move victory over world classical champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. This miniature victory on Thursday swings him from last place to fifty percent score in the MTel Masters Chess Tournament being played at Grand Hotel Sofia.

Bulgarian player, Veselin Topalov joined Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the lead with four points from seven games after a lucky victory over Michael Adams of England. Anand and Judit Polgar of Hungary are in joint third place with 3.5 points. Adams and Kramnik who shared the lead after the half-way stage crashed to two defeats in the last two rounds to share the last place with three points.

After such a decisive Wednesday one might expect the players to cool. That was not to be. Anand played a home prepared novelty with the white pieces against Kramnik's Petroff's defence on the 16th turn. Rather than retreat his queen and concede the space advantage to white, the big Russian was lured into capturing a poisoned pawn. On the 20th move Anand attacked two minor pieces with a rook move, threatening to capture one of them. Kramnik resigned and crashed to an embarrassing defeat in quick time. Anand has made a fighting comeback.

Overnight leader Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine kept the lead with a 29-move draw with the black pieces against Judit Polgar of Hungary. Ponomariov played the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez with the black pieces and sacrificed a pawn to reach an opposite colour bishop ending to draw safely.

In the last game to conclude, Adams lost his way after enjoying an extra pawn advantage against Topalov. Topalov won two pieces for a rook in the time scramble to win in 54 moves. Three rounds remain to be played. Anand has one white game against Judit Polgar left to be played and two blacks.

The results (seventh round): Judit Polgar (Hun) 3.5 drew Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 4, Michael Adams (Eng) 3 lost to Veselin Topalov (Bul) 4, Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 3.5 bt Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) 3.

The moves:

White: Viswanathan Anand - Black: Vladimir Kramnik, round seven, Petroff's defence, C42: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.0-0 Be7 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 0-0 10.Nc3 Bf5 11.a3 Nxc3 12.bxc3 Nc6 13.Re1 Re8 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15.Bf4 Rac8 16.Qc1 Na5 17.c4 Qe4 18.Bd1 Qd3 19.Re3 Qxc4 20.Re5 1-0.

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