Corus Chess: Anand beats Polgar

Wijk Aan Zee:

World champion Viswanathan Anand defeated the strongest woman player on earth, Hungarian Judit Polgar, in the seventh round to record his first victory in group 'A' of Corus Chess tournament here.

The victory, coming at post half-way stage of the Category-20 tournament, has revived Anand's hopes in the tournament and the Indian can now hope to catch up with the leaders with a similar result in rounds to come.

In group 'B', Grandmaster Koneru Humpy scored her first victory at the expense of GM Michal Krasenkow of Poland. Humpy displayed top form and perseverance playing white.

More good news came for the Indian contingent as GM Parimarjan Negi also won a fine game against Irina Krush of United States in group 'C' and P Harikrishna played out a draw with Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia in a group 'B' encounter.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway remained in sole lead after settling for a draw with former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

The Norwegian took his tally to five points out of a possible seven and remained a half point adrift of Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Levon Aronian of Armenia who defeated Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan who stands sole fourth on four points.

Aided by the victory, Anand is now on joint fifth spot with 3.5 points in his kitty.

History repeated itself as Anand and Polgar played a position they had played 10 years ago in the same hall. While that game had ended in a draw, Polgar had to pay the price for her over-ambitious approach in the seventh round here.

It was a Sicilian Nazdorf wherein Anand equalised easily and when Polgar pressed for an advantage the Indian ace was quick to pounce on a complicated continuation giving up two rooks for the queen.

Polgar had some chances thereafter but Anand was relentless in carving out a direct attack against the king and romped home after 53 moves.

Humpy was at her technical best in cruising past Krasenkow who played the black side of a Queen pawn opening.

Getting a slight initiative, Humpy converted to a double Bishop v/s double knight endgame where only she had winning chances. Krasenkow caved in after 94 moves.

Parimarjan had it easy against Krush winning in 39 moves in a Sicilian Classical game while Harikrishna missed some chances before signing peace with Nepomniachtchi after 122 moves.