Viswanathan Anand was on the threshold of victory despite losing the sixth game to Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk of Russia in the Grenke Leasing Championship, the main event of the Mainz Chess classic.
Even with Anand going a bit haywire, the lead remained unchanged in this high profile contest, being also touted as the World Rapid championship.
With 4 points in his kitty, Anand was still in command needing just half a point from the last two games as Grischuk, having two points so far, has a daunting task on hand to beat Anand twice before forcing a play off for the crown.
Interestingly, the Russian decided to play the Ordix Open, another rapid event which is a part of the Classic, earlier in the day. Grischuk, the defending champion in this section, probably considered the match against Anand already over and decided to play the open section where he started off with five victories on the trot to share a six-way lead.
Grandmaster and World Junior Champion P Harikrishna was on four points in this seciton.
Anand had drawn the fifth game of the match without much ado in just 22 moves but failed to keep the balance ticking in the next one and went down after an intense struggle, leaving Grischuk in with a chance to come back in the match.
The fifth game saw Grischuk up against the same variation that Anand had employed in his previous black game but could not do much as Anand liquidated the center in quick time.
Grischuk was a pawn less at the time of draw agreement with enough compensation.
© 2024 Rediff.com -