Viswanathan Anand scored a thumping victory over Russian Grandmaster Peter Svidler in the fifth round of the Corus International Chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands, on Thursday.
The Indian ace displayed top form to beat one of his archrivals, who is also known to be extremely solid in elite chess circles. The victory propelled Anand to 3.5 points and he now stands joint-second behind Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, whose juggernaut continued to roll.
In the 'C' group being held simultaneously, the world's youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi played it out safe against top seed Michal Krasenkow of Poland and earned an easy draw.
Negi is now joint third on three points in the section that is led by Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia on 4.5 points.
Meanwhile, there seemed no stopping Teimour Radjabov in Group 'A' as he scored his fourth victory in five games and stretched his lead to a full point over nearest rival Anand and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.
With eight rounds still to go in the category 19 tournament between 14 players, Radjabov has 4.5 points in his kitty.
World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Levon Aronian of Armenia are next in the standings on three points each while a pack of four is next in line on 2.5 points.
The day proved simply excellent for Anand as he won with awesome ease.
Playing the white side of a Ruy Lopez, Anand went for the topical Anti Marshall and had Svidler under considerable trouble on the king side early in the game.
Not able to find a suitable defense, the Russian blundered in a difficult position and resigned in a hopeless position after just 21 moves.
Things could have been different for Radjabov, who was lucky to beat David Navara the latest sensation in the mind game.
Playing black, the leader was simply one pawn less with just a little counter play when Navara went for unwarranted complications with a piece sacrifice and found his attack 'not good enough'.
Once on top, Radjabov made no mistakes.
Results, round 5 - 'A' Group: Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 2.5) drew with Alexander Motylev (Rus, 2); Alexei Shirov (Esp, 0.5) lost to Loek van Wely (Ned, 2); Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 1.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 3); David Navara (Cze, 2.5) lost to Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 4.5); Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr,2.5) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 3); V Anand (Ind, 3.5) beat Peter Svidler (Rus, 2.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 3) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1.5).
'C' Group: Nadezhda Kosintseva (Rus, 2) lost to Thomas Willemze (Ned, 1.5); Michal Krasenkow (Pol, 3) drew with Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 3); John van der Wiel (Ned, 1.5) drew with Stellan Brynell (Swe, 2); Emanuel Berg (Swe, 3.5) beat Wouter Spoelman (Ned, 1.5); Manuel Bosboom (Ned, 3) drew with Hou Yifan (Chn, 3); Harmen Jonkman (Ned, 1.5) lost to Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 4.5); Edwin van Haastert (Ned, 2.5) drew with Zhaoqin Peng (Ned, 2.5).
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