Anand emerges sole leader

Black stands for darkness but it’s a vice-versa in case of Reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, since black pieces add on a bit extra and bring vivacity to his performance at the moment as compared playing with white so far. Black is the colour of victory for Anand in the Morelia-Linares Chess tournament uptill now.

India’s top-ranked player Anand tasted his third victory of the tournament by defeating Hungary’s Peter Leko in the fifth round after playing with black pieces and emerged as the sole leader in the eight-field Morelia-Linares Chess tournament played at Morelia in Mexico on Wednesday.

Anand claimed all the three games with black while with white he has lost one and drawn one. The Indian ace, who is yet to win a game with white pieces here, reached to the top of the tables by sheer display of his flawless technique in the fifth round.

The defending champion appears on the right track thus far in pursuit of retaining the title. Norwegian Magnus Carlsen also registered his first victory in the meet as he edged past former world champion Veselin Toaplov of Bulgaria by exercising the uncommon Alekhine defense on a somewhat remarkable day in the category-21 double round-robin tournament.

The crafty teenager Carlsen too pulled off the win with the black. In the rest of the games of the day, Levon Aronian of Armenia played out a dull draw with Alexei Shirov of Spain while Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk settled for a draw with Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.

Anand is now in sole lead with 3.5 points and just following him on second spot is Aronian with a half point trail. Topalov, Shirov and Carlsen are now in joint third spot with 2.5 points each while the other three Ivanchuk, Leko and Aronian jointly share the fifth spot with 2 points apiece.

Results (Fifth round):

Leko lost to Anand; Topalov lost to Carlsen; Aronian drew with Shirov; Radjabov drew with Ivanchuk

Points after fifth round: Anand (3.5); Aronian (3); Shirov, Carlsen and Topalov (2.5); Radjabov, Leko and Ivanchuk (2)

Sixth round Pairings: Topalov v Anand; Aronian v Leko; Radjabov v Carlsen; Ivanchuk v Shirov