ARONIAN GETS PAST ANAND

Hindu
March 25 2008
India

NEW DELHI: Overnight leader Armenia’s Levon Aronian inflicted a 1.5-0.5
defeat on Viswanathan Anand in the eighth round of the Amber blindfold
and rapid chess tournament at Nice, France, on Sunday.

Anand, playing black, lost the blindfold game after missing a
favourable continuation and then drew the rapid game in 29 moves.

The results (8th round): Blindfold: Levon Aronian (Arm, 4.5) bt
Viswanathan Anand (4); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 5) bt Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
(Aze, 2.5); Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 3.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul,
4.5); Loek van Wely (Ned, 3) bt Peter Leko (Hun, 4.5); Boris Gelfand
(Isr, 2.5) drew with Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 5.5); Vassily Ivanchuk
(Ukr, 4) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 4.5).

Rapid: Anand (4.5) drew with Aronian (6); Mamedyarov (3.5) lost to
Carlsen (4.5); Topalov (4) bt Karjakin (3.5); Leko (4.5) drew with Wely
(3); Morozevich (3) bt Gelfand (3.5); Kramnik (4) drew with Ivanchuk
(4).

Combined standings: 1. Aronian (10.5), 2. Carlsen (9.5), 3. Leko (9),
4-7. Anand, Kramnik, Morozevich, Topalov (8.5 each), 8. Ivanchuk (8),
9. Karjakin (7), 10-12. Gelfand, Mamedyarov and Wely (6 each).