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Anand goes down to Adams

By Our Correspondent

Vishwanathan Anand, struggling with a series of drawn games, finally over-reached himself and ended up on the losing side against Michael Adams of England, in the 7th round of the 26th Sparkassen Chess Meeting.

Adams, playing white, used the quiet, closed version of the Sicilian against Anand but ran into trouble when the latter broke through with a double pawn sacrifice that sliced open Adams' queenside.

Anand was obviously playing to win, risking all in the process. However, he over-reached himself on move 24, when he played Qc7.

From that point on, the initiative passed to white and despite Anand's best efforts to draw from an endgame featuring queens and opposite-colour bishops, Adams' passed pawn on the A file rare signs of nerves from the Indian ace ended up with Anand losing in 57 moves.

This was Anand's first defeat after years of rivalry with Adams, at the highest level. Adams lost to Anand both at Las Palmas in 1995, and Groningen, 1997. Interestingly, expert analysis indicated that had Anand played cautiously in the endgame, he could have got away with a draw.

Anand now has 3 points from seven rounds with two games left to play, and no hope of taking the title.

Adams, meanwhile, with this win joined table leader Vladimir Kramnik on 5 points. Hungarian teenager Peter Leko on 4.5, Svidler and Ivanchuk on 4 apiece, are the other front runners.

Kramnik, hoping for his third straight win at this event, played a safe, steady draw against peace-loving Vassily Ivanchuk, agreeing to the draw after just 17 moves in a Russian Defence.

In fact, barring Anand's defeat by Adams, all otehr games were drawn. And Alexy Shirov, shortly to take on Garri Kasparov for the PCA world championship, slid to the bottom of the table with yet another draw, this time against Belyavsky. This leaves the Spaniard, Shirov, with a humiliating 1.5 points in 7 rounds.