Anand pulls off a brilliant win

World Champion Viswanathan Anand pulled off a brilliant win while former Champion Grandmaster Alexander Khalifman suffered his first loss after a long break from the game in the Super Grandmasters' Chess Tournament in this picturesque city yesterday.

Anand proved why he is hailed as one of the most talented players of the game ever. Playing black against tournament underdog GM Gilberto Hernandez of Mexico, Anand faced the unfashionable Grand Prix attack against his Sicilian and launched an offensive on the Queen side right from the word go.

Making his intentions clear as early as on the 10th move, Anand sacrificed a pawn and followed it up with a routine developing move that left Hernandez in a daze. The Mexican stalwart came up with a fine defensive resource but there was no stopping the Indian Grandmaster from entering further complications with a Rook sacrifice for a Bishop immediately after.

The resulting position gave Anand a greater boardroom and he manoeuvred his pieces nonchalantly to exert pressure on the queen side after posting his knight in the enemy camp.

Hernandez had to sweat hard to revive his counterplay in the game and he ripped open Anand's King side, going for Checkmate.

However, the process of calculating long variation took its toll on Hernandez and he slipped in time pressure to lose his vital queen bishop pawn after Anand ran out of checks.

The final opportunity was missed on the 43rd move when Hernandez failed to realise that Anand was in a kind of bind and all he had to do was forcibly push his Rook pawn. The position would have been far from clear then.

As it happened in the game Anand steered his king to safety and was threatening to march his pawns to glory when Hernandez resigned after the exchange of queens.

This game had a tremendous effect on the spectators and experts of the game. One of the popular websites commented after the game "we are used to seeing it, but it is still amazing to see Vishy (Anand) use only 90 minutes for such a complicated game. Hernandez just could not match Anand's precision and speed in time pressure".

Having the advantage of white pieces, Short looked well armed in one of the less played variations of the Caro Kann defence. Khalifman played all the routine maneouvers and got a dynamic equilibrium as the game progressed into the middlegame phase. With the light square Bishops off the board in a close French defence like position, it did not seem that Short would get much from his piece play.

The Rook lift on the 25th move probably jolted Khalifman a bit as he decided to open up the position, leaving his one pawn unattended in the process.

Time pressure ensued and as the dust settled after the 41st move, Khalifman realised that he had lost another pawn without much compensation. The visibly annoyed Russian called it a day immediately.

Both Anand and Short have 1.5 points each and Khalifman and Hernandez trail them by a full point margin.

Tomorrow, Anand will take on Short with white pieces.