Anand opens with a draw

World rapid chess champion Viswanathan Anand started his campaign with a quick and easy draw with Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk of Russia in the first round of Corus chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee,The Netherlands.

Afer a long lay-off from competitive chess, the strongest ever woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary scored the first full point in the 'A' group after crushing former Russian champion Peter Svidler on Saturday.

Bruzon Lazaro was the other player to get a good result as he held Braingames match winner Vladimir Kramnik to a draw while Englishman Michael Adams easily achieved the same result as black against compatriot Nigel Short.

Other games of round one were still in progress when Grischuk proposed the draw after making his 22nd move against Anand.

Apparently the Russian star was taken aback by Anand's choice of 'Ruy Lopez Open' as black and probably did not have a good look at this variation while preparing for the game.

Interestingly, Anand had already once reached the final position of this game in his match against Spanish Alexei Shirov in their 'Duel of World Champions' clash during the Chess Classics at Mainz in mid 2004.

That game had also ended in a draw after 42 moves and perhaps none as yet has found an able solution to black's piece sacrifice.

Last year alone as many as four Grandmaster games had reached the same position and the statistics favour black with one victory and three draws in those games.

Meanwhile, in the 'C' group, Indian youngster Parimarjan Negi failed to tackle Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev. Negi was caught off-guard in the opening itself as his opponent successfully confused him.

In trying to wriggle out of problems, Negi had to part with a pawn and the rest was easy for Alekseev.

Judit Polgar was out of action for more than a year. However, as it transpired after her inspiring performance, being away from the game has not had much negative impact on her. Svidler was outwitted from a Marshall Gambit game where the Hungarian played white.

Journeying through less trodden paths, Polgar optically allowed a nearly balanced position to Svidler but once her pieces got rolling, there was no stopping.

Svidler first came under pressure in the center and when he tried to get some counter play, he found his Bishop trapped through a tactical stroke.

The game lasted only 30 moves.

Kramnik found the going a little tough against Lazaro, who played a harmless set up with white pieces. After routine manoeuvring, the Russian stalwart was saddled with a slightly worse pawn structure and did not take any risk.

Michael Adams took just 23 moves to hold Short, who did not get much as white in the closed Ruy Lopez, while Dutchman Ivan Sokolov drew with Peter Leko of Hungary after fighting till the last nail.

Results round 1:

Alexander Grischuk (Rus) drew with V Anand (Ind); Nigel Short (Eng) drew with Michael Adams (Eng); Alexander Morozevich (Rus) playing Loek Van Wely (Ned); Lazaro Bruzon (Cub) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus); Veselin Topalov (Bul) playing Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr); Judit Polgar (Hun) beat Peter Svidler (Rus); Ivan Sokolov (Ned) drew with Peter Leko (Hun).