Anand finishes second in Blitz

World Champion Viswanathan Anand finished second in a strong field at the World Blitz Chess Championship, which concluded in Moscow on Friday.

Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine won the tournament scoring 25.5 points out of a possible 38 while Anand finished a point behind on 24.5.

The critical factor deciding the winner was the number of victories and personal encounter between the two. Ivanchuk scored 19 and Anand scored 18 wins in all while in their personal encounter the Ukrainian won by 1.5-0.5 margin after pocketing the final game with black pieces.

Defending champion Alexander Grischuk of Russia had to be content with the third place in this marathon event.

There were 20 players in all with the list being a virtual who's who of the chess world and the players had to play with each other twice.

Ivanchuk got the winner's cheque of USD 25000 while Anand got USD 15000. Spread over two days the event was organised in the Gum, a market near the Kremlin.

Final standings:
1 Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 25.5
2 Viswanathan Anand IND 24.5
3 Alexander Grischuk RUS 23.5
4 Gata Kamsky USA 23.5
5 Vladimir Kramnik RUS 21.5
6 Leko, Peter HUN 21.5
7 Sergei Rublevsky RUS 21.5
8 Morozevich, Alexander RUS 21.0
9 Magnus Carlsen NOR 20.5