Gelfand Stops Leko, Three Share Lead
By Arvind Aaron
It was one of the days in Monte Carlo where the wind carried everything. It included three of the leaders. The odd one was Peter Leko who was unlucky. He came near, had a mating attack but missed and also lost to Gelfand in the rapid session. Similarly, Kramnik needed all the luck to prevail over Almasi in the blindfold after looking like being mated at one stage. Viswanathan Anand marched ahead on merit inflicting a blow on Vassily Ivanchuk with a mine blowing pawn break on turn 34. Defending champion Alexei Shirov is out of the title race and suffered his fourth successive defeat. But he avoided his fifth and bounced back to defeat Piket and make a 1-1 score from the day. Veteran players, Karpov and Ljubojevic split points in both encounters. Anand leads rapid, Topalov tops blindfold. The four leaders got trimmed to three after round five and they include Anand, Kramnik and Topalov with 7/10. Six rounds remain to be played in this $193,250 event which is being organised by Association Max Euwe.
The results
Rapid
Blindfold
Anand-Ivanchuk 1-0
Ivanchuk-Anand Draw
Karpov-Ljubojevic Draw
Ljubojevic-Karpov Draw
Leko-Gelfand 0-1
Gelfand-Leko Draw
Kramnik-Almasi Draw
Almasi-Kramnik 0-1
Piket-Shirov 1-0
Shirov-Piket 1-0
Van Wely-Topalov Draw
Topalov-Van Wely 1-0