Anand Joins Lead
By Arvind Aaron
Although draws dominated, Viswanathan Anand gave a dazzling display, first he played brilliantly with black in the rapid game to sac a piece and try and checkmate Gelfand. Best play yielded a draw. In the next, he waited for his chance to exchange major pieces and use his pawn structure in the minor piece ending to win the blindfold.
Another impressive result of the day was Vladimir Kramnik's 2-0 sweep over rival Alexei Shirov. The blindfold game was a 14-move gift by Shirov when he blundered his queen in a well-known position. Anand and Kramnik joined jolted leader Topalov in the lead on 5.5 points after four rounds. Peter Leko ended Ljubo's winning spree in the blindfold to joint the lead as well. Piket played well and deserved more but Topalov played well to draw the blindfold game and save himself from a rout.
Ivanchuk drew Karpov twice, first with a brilliant stalemate and next with a bishop sacrifice getting perpetual checks. Seven games of the 12 were drawn but many of them were exciting.
The results:
Rapid
Blindfold
Almasi-Van Wely Draw
Van Wely-Almasi Draw
Topalov-Piket
0-1
Piket-Topalov
Draw
Shirov-Kramnik
0-1
Kramnik-Shirov
1-0
Ljubojevic-Leko Draw
Leko-Ljubojevic 1-0
Gelfand-Anand
Draw
Anand-Gelfand
1-0
Ivanchuk-Karpov Draw
Karpov-Ivanchuk Draw
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