Aronian tops Amber, Anand joint second

From Our Chess Correspondent

Nice (France), Mar 27 (PTI) World champion Viswanathan
Anand missed chances galore in the blindfold game against
Chinese Wang Yue and had to be content with an overall joint
second finish in the Amber blindfold and rapid chess
tournament here.

Anand, however, maintained his supremacy in the rapid
section as he tied with Levon Aronian of Armenia and Gata
Kamsky of United.

The Indian ace finished with an impressive 7 points out
of a possible 11 in rapid section while in the blindfold he
finished joint fourth on 6.5 points.

Aronian drew both his games against former world champion
Veslein Topalov of Bulgaria in the final round and emerged as
the clear winner in the 18th edition of the prestigious event.

The Armenian finished with 14 points out of a possible 22
games and remained a half point ahead of Anand and Vladimir
Kramnik of Russia who both shared the overall second spot.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway found his nemesis in the
blindfold in Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and finished clear
fourth after recovering to win the rapid game. The Norwegian
ended with a tally of 13 points and was two points clear of
next contender Alexander Morozevich of Russia.

Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian emerged as best blindfold
players on 7 points each. Anand's blindfold game against Wang
Yue was one of fluctuating fortunes and earlier it seems that
the Chinese was well on his way to a major upset when he
sacrificed a piece for a dangerous initiative coming out of a
Slav defense where Anand played black.

The sacrifice was correct, but Yue was also very short on
time having less than two minutes against Anand's eighteen.
With his clock ticking away, the Chinese slipped and Anand
took over the initiative and got excellent winning chances.

Anand eventually landed in an endgame of two knights
against king and pawn. There were two instances that he was
winning theoretically but these moments came and went without
the players really noticing.

Anand tried for a long time, but gave up his attempts
after 85 moves: "I managed to make more than 40 legal moves, I
don't think it's winning."

In the rapid game, Anand had a nagging edge all through
the game with his white pieces and the question was whether it
was going to be enough or not in another Slav of the day. The
position remained unpleasant for Yue for a long time and in
the end he succumbed to the pressure after 61 moves.

Aronian faced the Anti-Meran gambit in the blindfold game
against Topalov and was lucky to survive a lost position after
blundering. PTI