Viswanathan Anand duly retained his Chess Classic of Mainz trophy in the Grenke Leasing eight-match rapid series against Alexander Grischuk.
Anand, the NIIT Brand Ambassador, clinched the title in the seventh game itself as he ran up a 5-2 lead after starting the day at 4-2.
But then Grischuk earned himself a consolation game in the eighth and final clash. This was the fifth year in a row that Anand had won the title in this lovely German city.
The title means Anand will be back for the 2006 Chess Classic of Mainz for which the rival will be announced later.
Anand said, "I expected a close match and on the chessboard it was clear that it was a really close match. But the score tells a different story. After winning the fourth game, it was difficult to get a grip on the match.
"I wanted to reach the 4,5 points as soon as possible and that resulted in this disaster in the sixth game. You should never sit on your lead.
"It was an interesting match, with a lot of good games. I even enjoyed the last game that I lost; it was a beautiful game. I was completely winning, but somehow lost it."
On the last day of the Grenke Leasing, the Indian ace won the seventh game after 47 moves. Then in the eighth game, though Grischuk started playing chess at 10 o'clock this morning -- as he was also playing the Ordix Open event going alongside -- the Russian won to narrow the margin.
He said he wanted to show a good last game to say goodbye to the audience. "That was a miracle," Grischuk laughed.
Speaking on his match with Anand Grischuk said, "My romantic side says that I have to say good luck to the winner, but my realistic side says that Anand won because of serious training and practice and therefore deserved to win the match.
"The last game was strange, I did not want to make a draw, but I was not really motivated anymore. And then a miracle happened: I won the last game!"
In the FiNet Chess960 World Championship Peter Svidler defended his title for the third time. After his fine wins over Peter Leko in 2003 and Levon Aronian in 2004, this year the Russian won his Chess960 match against Zoltan Almasi from Hungary 5-3. The last two games on Sunday ended in a draw.
Teimour Radjabov won the Ordix Open, while two-time winner Grischuk along with seven others was tied second.
The man behind the tournament, Hans-Walter Schmitt, said, "This was a perfect tournament, with many highlights. We have seen exciting matches, with good players.
"I liked the Opens, with players like Bacrot, Aronian and so on and I liked the fact that so many German players came to Mainz.
"It is obvious that Aronian will play against Peter Svidler next year, but it is not clear that the Ordix Open winner, Radjabov, will play a match against Vishy next year. The computer chess tourney was important as well.
"We will keep on organising the Computer tournament and every now and then we will have man-machine exhibitions as well. We are not going to mix computers and humans in tournaments."
The Chess Classic Mainz 2006 tournament will start on 15 August 2006.
