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Anand begins with a win

Vishwanathan Anand of India started off in style with a win in the blindfold section of the annual Amber Chess tournament in Monaco.

The Indian, who went through an agonising tournament in Linares earlier this month, was grouped together with five others in the second position after the first round of the tournament.

The sole leader was Vladimir Kramnik, the defending champion, and winner of the Linares event jointly with Garry Kasparov, who is not participating. The only player to post a double win result was Kramnik, who defeated Dutchman Jeroen Piket 2-0.

This is a 12- player tournament in which every player meets the others once over a set of two games. They play one game each in rapid and blindfold sections.

Though not conventional classical chess, this tournament attracts a lot of interest and terrific field, not only because of the undisclosed appearance fess, but also because of the excitement it generates. Often top players blunder in blindfold section, where they have no assistance of a board but the spectators can see it all.

Games are played with 25 minutes a player and players get 10 seconds added to their clocks each time they make a move. There are two sessions each of rapid blinflold games each day.

In this tournament there are prizes for rapid, blindfold and overall standings. Anand, who has twice won this event in its nine-year history, was up against Yugoslav Ljubomir Ljubojeive, who now lives in Spain. He drew the rapid game, but won the blindfold. The result gave Anand a 1.5-0.5 score.

Ljubojevic played the Sicilian Najdorf against Anand in the blindfold. Anand attacked with gusto and landed the Yugoslav in tremendous pressure and won comfortably.

In the rapid section, Ljubojeivic and Anand drew in just 26 moves and just short of a quarter of an hour Anand adopted the Grunfeld defence against the queen pawn. After exchange of pieces, the game became a rooks and bishop ending and then drew after 26 moves.

Of the six wins to be registered on the opening day, four came in blindfold section and two in rapid. Apart from Kramnik, Boris Gelfand, who plays for Israel, against Bosnia-Herzogovina's Predrag Nikolic, achieved the other rapid victory.

In the blindfold, the wins were secured by Karmnik against Piket, former world champion Anatoly Karpov over Loek Van Wely, Alexi Shirov over Frenchman Joel Lautier and Anand over Ljubojevic.

Former world champion Karpov who was not invited for the Linares tournament, made an apparance here. He beat Loek Van Wely in 52 moves of the blindfold game, but drew the rapid game.

Kramnik beat Piket's Slav defence in 30 moves getting two rooks for two minor piece.

Results (first round)

Combined standings (Round 1) Kramnik (Rus) 2/2; 2-6 Anand (Ind) Gelfand (Isr), Karpov (Rus), Shirov (Esp), Topolov (Bul) 1.5 each; 7.11 Ivanchuk (Ukr), Lautier (Fra), Ljubojevic (Yug), Nikolic (Bih), Van Wely (Ned) 0.5 each; 12. Piket (Ned) 0.