Anand wins Corsica Open chess

Vishwanathan Anand added a fourth world-level title to his collection this year as he came back strongly from a first-game loss to beat veteran Anatoly Karpov of Russia in the final of the sixth edition of the Corsica Open chess tournament in Bastia, France.

Over the last three months Anand has won the Eurotel title in Prague in May, followed by the Chess Classic of Mainz title in July, the World Cup in Hyderabad in October and now the Corsica Open.

In the final against Karpov, another former FIDE World champion, the Indian lost the first game but bounced back to win the next and send the match into a play-off.

The players drew the next two games before Anand won the last two, played in the blitz format. This was the first match in the knock-out stage where Anand had been stretched beyond the normal two-game match.

The 32-year-old Anand, who, ironically had lost the FIDE World championships final to Karpov in the rapid games tie-breaker back in 1998, has now beaten the 52-year-old Russian in their last two finals at Eurotel Championships in Prague and Corsica.

Anand lost the first game with black in a Queen's Indian opening, but then struck back with white in a Petroff defence employed by his rival. The next two games were drawn in Caro-Kann and Queen's Gambit Accepted. In the fifth game, now being played in the blitz format with five minutes for the game besides five seconds being added for each move, Anand won in Neo Gruenfeld with black pieces.

In the sixth game, needing only a draw, he sealed the title in style in a Sicilian but Karpov was also taking chances knowing he had to win to stay in the hunt.

The time control for the first two games was 20 minutes plus five seconds for every move and then it was 10 minutes plus five seconds for the next two games and then 5 minutes plus 5 seconds for the blitz games.

The 32-year-old once called the 'Lightning Kid' in his early years, because of the speed of his play, has continued to maintain that style. At the Corsica Open, he became the first player to win the title three times in a row, having won it on previous two occasions, too.

In his last four rounds in the knock-out format Anand beat Javier Cornero Moreno of Spain, Artur Yusupov of Germany, Mikhail Gurevich of Belgium and finally Anatoly Karpov of Russia.

Kaprov, meanwhile, got past Jurij Zezulkin, Vladislav Tkachiev, and Alexei Shirov before succumbing to Anand.

For Karpov, this has been the third final he has lost this season. A week before Corsica he lost the final to Boris Gelfand in Cape d'Agde.

The Corsica Open is a unique tournament in which more than 350 players take part. The initial stage is spent in getting the 16 top players for the elite knock-out event. The 16 then play two-game matches in the rapid format leading to the title match, which is also in the same format.

Anand will now start his preparations for the coming year when he plays the traditional strong tournaments in classical format like Wijk Aan Zee and Linares early next year.

Anand is the Brand Ambassador of the Indian IT giant NIIT and has recently drawn up plans to start a chess for schools programme with his sponsors.