Viswanathan Anand, India's greatest mind champion, is well on his way to retaining his Corus Grandmasters' Chess title and starting the new year with a bang.
The defending champion, who has shown a perfect blend of aggression, caution and innovation in the nine rounds so far, is a clear leader by one point with four more rounds to go. Having such a lead, for a player so strong as Anand, is considered by most a 'certain-win' situation.
In fact, Anand has been installed as heavy favourite to retain the title. The odds on him are 1.2 while the next best odds are for Peter Leko at 1:12, which means Anand is ten times a heavier favorite than Leko.
Michael Adams's odds are 1:15 and that of Vladimir Kramnik 1:50.
Anand now has 6.5 points while two others, Adams and Leko, have 5.5 each. Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Loek Van Wely and Peter Svidler have five points each.
If the NIIT brand ambassador, as expected, holds on to the title, it will be his fourth crown at Wijk Aan Zee.
In the last four rounds, Anand performed brilliantly, scoring three wins and a draw and picked 3.5 points out of a possible four.
In the next four rounds, his opponents are Adams (tenth round), Jan Timman (11th), Veselin Topalov (12th) and Ivan Sokolov (13th).
Anand has a good record against almost all of them. In addition, he has white pieces against Timman and Sokolov.
Of late, he has adopted a strategy of going all out for a victory with white and then bid his time with black. In case he finds a good situation he goes for the jugular with even black.
He has also shown some very innovative and on-board improvisations, indicating that his level of understanding has reached new heights. His rook sacrifice against Kramnik was one such example of amazing play, which took all by surprise.
Standings after Rund 9: 1. Anand, 6.5 points; 2. Leko and Adams 5.5 each; 4. Kramnik, Van Wely, Topalov and Svidler 5.0 each; 8. Shirov 4.5; 9. Akopian and Bologan 4.0 each; 11. Zhang and Timman 3.5 each; 13. Sokolov and Bareev 3.0 each.
Pairings for Round 10: Topalov v Bareev, Adams v Anand, Lekov v Shirov, Akopian v Svidler, Van Wely v Bologan, Sokolov v Zhang, Timman v Kramnik.
* Anand's games are available on www.nitt.com/vishy
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