ANAND SHARES LEAD WITH KRAMNIK IN WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
Zee News, India
15 Sept 2007
Mexico, Sept 15: Top seed Viswanathan Anand displayed excellent
tactical acumen to beat Grandmaster Levon Aronian of Armenia in the
second round of the World Chess Championship underway here.
Anand, though playing with black pieces, avenged his defeat against
Aronian at the Morelia/Linares tournament and took his tally to
1.5 points to share the lead with arch-rival and defending champion
Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Kramnik came out triumphs against compatriot Alexander Morozevich
while the other two games of the day were drawn.
Russians Peter Svidler and Alexander Grishchuk along with Israeli
Boris Gelfand and Hungarian Peter Leko stand joint second with one
point in their kitty.
Following their second round loss, Aronian and Morozevich slipped to
the bottom of the tables on a half point from two games.
After a rather cautious opening round, the excitement came calling
in the world championship as all the games were fought hard.
Anand caught Aronian off guard in the Moscow variation of the Slav
defense. Playing white, the Armenian was not his usual self after
Anand uncorked a fine idea and even as he tried for complications
with a temporary piece sacrifice in the middle game Aronian knew it
was going to be difficult to salvage the onslaught.
Anand trapped white`s rook on the edge of the board and when Aronian
was forced to part with it for a knight the writing was already on
the wall for an Indian victory. Playing precise moves thereafter
Anand won after 41 moves.
Kramnik was a step ahead in demolishing the defenses of Morozevich. It
was a Catalan opening where Morozevich played black and faced a
`novelty` on move eight.
Kramnik went for wild complications in the middle game and was duly
rewarded as Morozevich went haywire with his optical attack. Pushing
the passed queenside pawns in quick time kramnik had an extra queen
on board by move 26 and move later Morozevich called it a day.
Peter Svidler`s attempts to push Leko did not fall along his personal
expectations and the game ended in a draw after 43 moves.
Playing white, Svidler faced the Marshall gambit by Leko and even
though the Russian had an extra pawn till the game ended, Leko
was never in any serious troubles even as the pieces got traded at
regular intervals.
Alexander Grishchuk had little troubles against Boris Gelfand of
Israel in the queen`s Indian defense game where the former played
black. Routine exchanges in this game led to `no-tension` for either
players and the draw was a just result after only 23 moves.
Results round 2: Levon Aronian (arm, 0.5) lost to Viswanathan Anand
(Ind, 1.5); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1.5) beat Alexander Morozevich
(Rus, 0.5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 1) drew with Alexander Grishchuk
(Rus, 1); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1) drew with Peter Leko (Hun, 1).