Anand’s title-defence starts with a bang

Mainz: World rapid chess king Viswanathan Anand started his title-defence with two thumping victories over Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk of Russia on the opening day of the Grekenleasing Championship, the main event of the Mainz Classic that got underway here.

Anand, a huge favourite for his fifth successive title in Mainz, was clearly the stronger player in the first two games of this high profile event and outclassed Grischuk in all departments of the game to take a 2-0 lead.

The eight-game match is being played under rapid chess rules with 25 minutes to each player at the start with a 10 second increment after every move is played.

Anand started his first game with black pieces and the loss came as a real shocker to Grischuk, who failed to tackle the Indian with the slightly favourable colour. The impact was quite disheartening as the Russian, generally known as a consistent performer, crumbled in the second game too.

Playing the Queen’s Indian in the first, Anand achieved a balanced position without much ado and definitely Grischuk was not comfortable in taking a draw with white in the first game itself in this short match.

Looking for an elusive attack, the Russian was outdone by Anand in quick time when the Indian calculated more and found a major flaw in his opponent’s analysis. Winning a piece in the tactical melee, Anand had little trouble in converting his extra material to a full point in just 40 moves.

The second game saw a typical attack-counterattack battle wherein Anand’s mastery in Sicilian English attack came handy for him. Playing white this time, Anand gave a fine lesson in attacking chess to Grischuk.

It looked like a race against getting to the king when both players started the onslaught in the middle game almost simultaneously.

However, Anand’s sprint proved much quicker when the dust subsided. A methodical pawn sacrifice on the 24th move left the Russian panting for breath and Anand went berserk with his attack, first sacrificing an exchange and latter a full piece to keep himself in the game.

The Indian ace then wasted little time in quietly coming to the rescue of his king. When the extra rook had its say in the matter, it was all over in 38 moves.

Meanwhile, in the Finet Open Chess 960 tournament, organised simultaneously, Grandmaster and world junior champion P. Harikrishna won four and lost one game in the first five rounds.

The Indian started with three victories in the 207-player strong event but lost his fourth round and bounced back with a victory over Mikheil Kekelidze of Georgia in his fifth game.

Grandmasters Ivan Sokolov of the Netherlands and Alexei Shirov of Spain, who both have 5 points, were jointly leading the event while Harikrishna is sharing the eighth spot.