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Anand scores first rapid victory

Vishwanathan Anand moved one more step forward and into joint second place as he scored his first victory in the rapid section, defeating Jeroen Piket of The Netherlands in the seventh round of the Amber Chess tournament in Monte Carlo.

Anand leads the standings in blindfold with 5.5 points out of seven and is a full point ahead of Veselin Topalov, Alexei Shirov, Antoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik, who all have 4.5 points each.

Anand has 3.5 points in the rapid section, in which Shirov is way ahead with six out of seven. Shirov also leads the overall standings with 10.5 points, while Anand and Topalov are joint second with nine points each. There are still four more rounds to go in the tournament.

The Indian Grandmaster, who had a poor start in the tournament, has now won at least one game in each of his last three rounds. He won the rapid game in style and then drew the blindfold game to score a 1.5-0.5 victory against the Dutchman. That took Anand's tally to nine points from a maximum possible 14. He shares the second place with Veselin Topalov, who had a bad day against Alexei Shirov, the leader.

Shirov won the rapid game and drew the blindfold against Topalov and now leads the 10.5 points from seven rounds.

Anand, whose results in the rapid games have been rather poor this time, finally logged a win. In a long and technical game, where he was always slightly better in a closed Ruy Lopez position, he played his strong and active knight against Piket's passive Bishop and wrested the control decisively. He won in 46 moves.

In the blindfold game both players agreed to a draw after 26 moves.

Shirov had a great day beating his most important opponent Topalov. The Latvian-born Spanish GM has won each of his seven rounds by an identical 1.5-0.5 margin and is now the only unbeaten player in the tournament.

In the rapid game it was Topalov, with black, who sacrificed the exchange in a sharp line of the Sicilian. But it did not work and Shirov got control over the position. Topalov fought gamely for 75 moves before resigning.

In the blindfold game both players again played sharply. The game was an exciting draw after 35 moves.

Karpov and Nikolic played two exciting draws, where Karpov even missed a mater in two in the rapid. The rapid game went on for a marathon 111 moves and the blindfold went on for 63 before being drawn.

Talking of missed chances, Loek Van Wely missed a big chance in the rapid game against Ivanchuk. Ultimately Ivanchuk turned the tables and went on to win himself. In the blindfold Van Wely again lost a safe position to hand Ivanchuk a good 2-0 win.

Kramnik beat Lautier 1.5-0.5 while Ljubomir Ljubojevic lost 0-2 to Boris Gelfand.

Results of the seventh round:

Rapid: Lautier lost to Kramnik; Ljubojevic lost to Gelfand; Van Wely lost to Ivanchuk; Shirov beat Topalov; Karpov drew with Nikolic; Anand beat Piket.

Blindfold: Kramnik drew with Lautier; Gelfand beat Ljubojevic; Ivanchuk beat Van Wely; Topalov drew with Shirov Nikolic drew with Karpov; Piket drew with Anand.

Rapid standings: 1. Shirov 6.0; 2. Ivanchuk 5.0; 3. Topalov 4.5; 4. Gelfand, Karpov 4.0 each; Van Wely, Anand, and Kramnik 3.5 each; 9. Nikolic 2.5; 10. Piket and Lautier 2.0 each; 12. Ljubojevic 1.5.

Blindfold standings: 1. Anand 5.5, 2. Topalov, Shirov, Karpov and Kramnik 4.5 each, 6. Piket 4.0, 7. Gelfand 3.5, 8. Ljubojevic and Ivanchuk 2.5 each, 10. Nikolic, Lautier and Van Wely 2.0 each.

Overall standings: 1. Shirov 10.5; 2.Topalov and Anand 9.0 each; 4. Karpov 8.5; 5. Kramnik 8.0; 6. Ivanchuk, Gelfand 7.5 each; 8. Piket 6.0; 9. Van Wely 5.5; 10. Nikolic 4.5; 11. Ljubojevic and Lautier 4.0.

UNI