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Anand close to Amber title
Vishwanathan Anand cruised past Dutch Grandmaster Loek Van Wely in the 9th round of the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament.
- Indo-Asian News Service
- Updated: February 25, 2007 09:51 AM IST
Read Time:2 min
Monaco:
Vishwanathan Anand cruised past Dutch Grandmaster Loek Van Wely with a 1.5-0.5 victory in the 9th round of the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament at Monte Carlo Grand. Winning his blindfold game and drawing the rapid, Anand almost assured himself of his fourth title on the Monaco soil after taking his lead to a whopping three points with just two rounds or four games remaining in this unique event that has a total prize money of Euros 193,250. The Indian ace now just needed 1.5 points in the remaining four rounds for his fourth unshared title in Amber chess that is played on a round robin basis with one blindfold and one rapid game in each round. With his seventh victory in the 9 mini-matches here so far, Anand also stepped closer to victory in all the three events -- rapid, blindfold and combined -- which he continued to lead solely after the 9th round. For the records, Anand now has 13.5 points under his belt and the closest rival is last year's joint winner Alexander Morozevich of Russia who is three points behind. In joint third spot are Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Peter Leko of Hungary and former Russian champion Peter Svidler who all have 10 points each in their kitty. Classical champion Vladimir Kramnik, perceived as a threat to Anand's supremacy at the start of the event, does not even have a theoretical chance of catching up with Anand as he lags behind 4.5 points from the Indian ace. (PTI)Topics mentioned in this article
Chess
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