ARONIAN LIFTS 960 CHESS TITLE
Press Trust of India
Friday, August 17, 2007
Mainz, Germany
Armenian Levona Aronian beat Vishwanathan Anand in tie-breaker in a
thrilling final to clinch the Chess 960 World Championships.
Playing this variant of the game for the first time where the position
of the pieces at the start is set randomly for each game, Anand fought
from behind to level the scores 2-2 after the rapid games.
Aronian, however, produced a scintillating performance in the shoot-out
to score 1.5-0.5 to lift the title in Mainz on Thursday.
In the playoff for third place, Etienne Bacrot of France mauled Rustam
Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan 3-1.
Anand lost the first game of the four game match after spoiling a
promising position against Aronian who played with white.
After a lot of manoeuvring the players arrived at a chess-like
position where Anand had little to worry about. However, for once,
the Indian ace was under pressure on the clock which eventually had
a telling effect.
After drawing the next two games Anand took the match to tiebreaker
that Aronian won eventually.
"I am happy to retain my title for the second time. It was a tough
match and Anand played well but he committed many mistakes in the
first game and lost," Aronian said.
It will be time for some normal chess again as Anand will start his
campaign for the 10th overall title in Chess Classics Rapid.