Former World champion Viswanathan Anand suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Hungarian Grandmaster Peter Leko in the fifth and penultimate round of the Armenia versus Rest of the World chess contest at Hotel Hyatt Ararat in Moscow on Monday.
Smbat Lputian also struck back firmly to help Armenia stage a remarkable recovery in the closing stages of this match, being organised to celebrate the 75th birth anniversary of late Armenian World champion Tigran Petrosian.
Team Armenia eventually coasted home to a 4-2 victory, their first so far in the six-game match, and narrowed the World's lead down to two points.
With just one more round of six games remaining in the Scheveningen event, the World team is still the favourite to win.
The scores now stand at 16-14 in the World's favour.
After five straight black victories, it was the turn of the first player to do the damage and coming out triumphant was Leko, who played an energy-filled end game to put it across Anand.
Playing the white side of a Sicilian Tiamanov, Leko opted for the structure akin to the English attack and ensured himself a better end game after the queens got traded very early in the middle game.
Anand's game plan did not succeed in the latter stages even as pieces got exchanged at regular intervals and the players arrived at rook and pawns end game with equal strength.
However, the pawn structure of the Indian was earlier dismantled by the Hungarian star and Anand found hard to cope.
Knocking down one pawn by force, Leko displayed excellent technique to romp home in 68 moves.
Lputian had a dubious record thus far in the event with three losses and a draw but the lowest rated Armenian player in the match held on to his own to succeed over young Spaniard Francisco Vallejo Pons, who had to pay heavy for his over ambitious play.
It was a position akin to the Queen's gambit accepted after the opening and Vallejo had a comfortable position on board after he won a pawn.
The just result should have been a draw as white had more active pieces but trying harder, Vallejo went for an exchange and got two menacing passed pawns on the queen's side.
However, just as it appeared Vallejo was cruising, Lputian came up with some dour defence, denying further liberty to his opponent.
As it turned out in the end, the better decision might have been a draw by repetition that Vallejo refused after the exchange.
Lputian handled the end game pretty well to score his first victory at a crucial moment for his team. The game lasted 76 moves.
All the remaining four matches were drawn and the quickest of the day was between Adams and Gelfand, who signed truce in just 20 moves of a Sicilian Nazdorf.
As if taking a cue from them, Etienne Bacrot of the World team agreed to share a point with Vladimir Akopian after some shadow boxing in the Nimzo Indian. However, this turned out to be bad strategy for the World as giving away two easy draws with white backfired in the end.
Russian champion Peter Svidler pressed for some advantage against the world's top rated Garry Kasparov, who is representing Armenia, as his mother is Armenian.
However, the Rossolimo attack by Svidler met with effective counter play by Kasparov and eventually after routine exchanges the player arrived at a minor pieces endgame and signed peace after 58 moves.
Rafael Vaganian drew with Loek Van Wely after an intense battle arising out of a Queen pawn game where the former played white.
Even as the pieces changed hands quickly, Van Wely came quite close to winning but for some fine defensive technique by Vaganian who steered the game to theoretically drawn endgame in 44 moves.
Scores after match 5: Rest of the World leads Armenia 16-14 (Peter Svidler drew with Garry Kasparov; Viswanathan Anand lost to Peter Leko; Etienne Bacrot drew Vladimir Akopian; Francisco Vallejo Pons lost to Smbat Lputian; Michael Adams drew with Boris Gelfand; Loek Van Wely drew with Rafael Vaganian).
