ARONIAN RETAINS TITLE

The Hindu
March 27 2009
India

NEW DELHI: Armenia’s Levon Aronian pipped Viswanathan Anand and
Vladimir Kramnik to defend his title in the Amber blindfold and rapid
chess tournament at Nice, France, on Thursday.

Anand had the consolation of sharing the rapid title with Aronian and
Gata Kamsky. Aronian also shared the blindfold title with Kramnik
and Magnus Carlsen. Anand blew away his winning chances during the
blindfold game against Wang Yue before emerging stronger in the
rapid encounter.

The results: Blindfold (11th round): Wang Yue (Chn, 3.5) drew with
Viswanathan Anand (6.5); Veselin Topalov (Bul, 5.5) drew with Levon
Aronian (Arm, 7); Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 5) bt Magnus Carlsen (Nor,
7); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 7) bt Peter Leko (Hun, 5.5); Alexander
Morozevich (Rus, 6.5) bt Gata Kamsky (USA, 3); Sergey Karjakin (Ukr,
4.5) bt Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 5); 10th round: Carlsen lost to Kramnik;
Anand lost to Morozevich; Aronian bt Wang Yue; Leko lost to Karjakin;
Ivanchuk bt Radjabov; Kamsky lost to Topalov.

Rapid (11th round): Anand (7) bt Wang Yue (4); Aronian (7) drew with
Topalov (5); Carlsen (6) bt Rajdabov (4); Leko (4.5) lost to Kramnik
(6.5); Kamsky (7) drew with Morozevich (4.5); Ivanchuk (4.5) lost to
Karjakin (6); 10th round: Morozevich drew with Anand; Wang Yue drew
with Aronian; Kramnik drew with Carlsen; Karjakin drew with Leko;
Topalov bt Kamsky; Radjabov drew with Ivanchuk.

Final standings: 1. Aronian (14), 2-3 Kramnik, Anand (13.5 each),
4. Carlsen (13), 5. Morozevich (11), 6-7 Topalov, Karjakin (10.5
each), 8-9 Kamsky, Leko (10 each), 10. Ivanchuk (9.5), 11. Radjabov
(9) and 12. Wang Yue (7.5).