Anand beats Shirov in Morelia-Linares opener

Reigning World champion and India’s top ranked player Viswanathan Anand started off his campaign in style after registering a convincing win over Spaniard Alexei Shirov with black pieces in the opening round of the eight-field Morelia-Linares chess tournament that commenced in Mexico city on Friday.

The World Champion took just 30 moves for his splendid victory, amongst three in the four games of the first round. Hungarian Peter Leko beat young Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan while Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov beat Lev Aronian of Armenia in the other games.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway settled for the only draw of the day after having a tough fight with Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk in 39 moves. The win provided Anand a threesome lead in the double round-robin classical game format of the championship.

The last Classical game meeting between the two of them was ended in a draw when Shirov played Anand with black pieces in the last year’s Corus chess tournament.