Viswanathan Anand struck back with vengeance against Hungarian Peter Leko and won the eighth round mini-match 1.5-0.5 in the 14th Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament in Monaco.
After a wonderful start that fetched him as many as 9 points from first 10 games, the Indian ace hit a temporary low against Russians Alexander Morozevich and Evgeny Bareev and could muster just 1.5 points in four games against them. However with this fine victory against Leko, Anand yet again stamped his authority in this unique event that has a total prize pool of Euros 193250.
After the victory, Anand took his tally to 12 points out of a possible 16 and increased his lead to a whopping three points once again with three games still remaining in the rapid section at the time of going to press.
Morozevich is the man behind Anand at this point of time but the final position in standings will be known only after the remaining three games of rapid section finish.
Anand was at his technical best in tackling Leko specially in the rapid game after the blindfold encounter between the two had reached a drawn result.
Playing the Petroff defence, Anand was quick to pounce on the opportunity presented by Leko to sacrifice three pieces for a queen and later picked up white pawns in tandem to score victory in 51 moves. The final position was a picturesque sight as Anand had three rolling passed pawns on the queen side and Leko's extra Bishop proved unable to withstand them.
With the victory Anand also avenged his loss against Leko in the Corus chess tournament earlier this year. It may be recalled here that Anand had finished second behind Leko there.
Earlier in the blindfold game, Anand had little to worry about with his white pieces as Leko allowed the Ruy Lopez having the Marshall gambit in mind. Anand, showing little interest in a theoretical and tactical battled steered the game to a close variation and the players signed peace in just 20 moves. With this Anand took his blindfold tally to 6 points and now has a 1.5 points lead in this section.
"Black is ok" was the order of the day especially in the rapid section as Russian Vladimir Kramnik and Bulgarian Veselin Topalov also scored victories playing the slightly unfavourable colour of the game.
All the same, Kramnik's victory was only enough to level scores against compatriot Morozevich as the latter had scored a fine victory in their blindfold game earlier.
However, Topalov, struggling with his form here, gained an excellent 1.5-0.5 victory over Bareev, who had beaten Anand in the previous round, following his triumph.
Results Round 8 (blindfold):
Viswanathan Anand (Ind) drew with Peter Leko (Hun); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) lost to Alexander Morozevich (Rus); Veselin Topalov (Bul) drew with Evgeny Bareev (Rus); Francisco Pons Vallejo (Esp) beat Loek Van Wely (Ned); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) drew with Peter Svidler; Alexei Shirov (Esp) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr).
Rapid (available result): Leko lost to Anand; Morozevich lost to Kramnik; Bareev lost to Topalov
Blindfold Standings: 1. Anand 6; 2-5. Vallejo, Morozevich, Svidler, Kramnik 4.5 each; 6-8. Ivanchuk, Leko, Gelfand, 4 each; 9-10. Shirov, Topalov 3.5 each; 11. Van Wely, 3; 12. Bareev 2.
Combined Standings after round 8 blindfold: 1. Anand 12; 2. Morozevich 9; 3-5. Svidler, Ivanchuk, Leko 8.5 each; 6-7. Kramnik, Gelfand 7.5 each; 8-9. Shirov, Vallejo 7; 10-11. Bareev, Topalov 5.5; 12. Van Wely 4.5.