Anand escapes to victory

NEW DELHI, DEC 17: Viswanathan Anand survived one of the most testing times in his career, as he was taken into the blitz stage of the thir...

int(3)

NEW DELHI, DEC 17: Viswanathan Anand survived one of the most testing times in his career, as he was taken into the blitz stage of the third round match against Alexander Khalifman of Russia in the FIDE World chess championships.

After just about surviving the tense second game in regulation stage — where Khalifman was so close to victory — Anand lived through three matches in the of tie-breaker before finally winning in the fourth to move into the fourth round. He will now meet Zoltan Almasi, who beat Artur Yusupov in two games.

Boris Gelfand was another one to make it by the skin of his teeth as he won 4-3 in tie-breaker. Gelfand beat Joel Lautier in the two blitz games to move into fourth round, where he meets Vladislav Tkachiev.

Story continues below this ad

According to information reaching here, Australian Grandmaster, Ian Rogers analysing Tuesday’s game felt Anand’s save was nothing short of miraculous.

In his post-match analysis, made available by the organisers, Anand said, “I was thinking about when to book my flight home,” said a relieved Anand, “until he played 42…e3. Then it was very tricky.” Anand praised Khalifman’s 18…Rd8! as the move which made him realise that not only did he not hold an advantage, he could actually stand worse. “I didn’t play 19.Bd3 because I though he might be better but his position was even stronger after 19.Bh3. Later I saw that 28.Rd6 could be answered by 28…Nxe4, but for some reason I played 28.Rd6 anyway. Maybe, by that stage there was nothing better,” Anand added.

The rook endgame should have been easily winning for Khalifman, who needed only to manoeuvre his king in front of the pawns to stop Anand’s checks and win the game. However even the final position, where Khalifman surprisingly took a draw by repetition of moves, was probably winning for Black after move 50, but the draw had been agreed to on move 49.

Third round results: J Lautier lost to B Gelfand (4-3 in TB); L Oll lost to V Tkachiev 1.5-2.5; V Zvjaginsev bt Y Seirawan 2.5-1.5 in TB; A Dreev bt M Sadler 1.5-0.5; A Khalifman lost to V Anand 2.5-3.5 in TB; A Yusupov lost to Z Almasi 0.5-1.5; G Milos lost to A Shirov 1.5-2.5 in TB; R Vaganian lost to V Akopian 3-4 in TB; Azmaiparashvili bt A Aleksandrov 1.5-0.5; E Bareev lost to M Krasenkow 0.5-1.5; A Beliavsky bt S Rublevsky 2.5-1.5 in TB; N Short bt A Sokolov 2-0; J Piket lost to L Van Wely 3.5-2.5 in TB; K Georgiev bt V Milov 1.5-0.5; M Adams bt S Tiviakov 1.5-0.5; P Svidler bt V Epishin 1.5-0.5