Anand in sole lead after first leg of the World Championship

Sep 22: World number one Vishwanathan Anand of India emerged as a sole leader defeating Alexander Grischuk in the seventh round, after the first leg of the World Chess Championship concluded at the Mexico City on Friday.

Top-ranked Anand is sitting comfortably at the top with a half point lead ahead of Boris Gelfand, who drew with defending champion Vladimir Kramnik, and slipped to the second position. Kramnik is in the third position with 4 points.

The seventh round brought the end of the first leg of the tournament. The Championship is in the deciding phase now, as each move could give everyone a possible dent in the race of a title. The players will be pitched once again in the second half of the tournament, but with colours reversed. Anand will now play with Black pieces against Boris Gelfand in the next round.

The other games of the championship were also tackled hard, but didn’t produce any conclusive results. Peter Leko played firmly with black to draw against Alexander Morozevich while Svidler drew his game against underdog Levon Aronian.

Anand looks like the favourite to win the Championship in the first half, but it’s too early to say. Gelfand and Kramnik are his most dangerous rivals and chasing him closely at this point. They will surely try their hard to extricate Anand from the top position in the latter part of the event.

The pairing for the round eight is Boris Gelfand vs Vishwanathan Anand, Peter Svidler vs Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian vs Alexander Morozevich and Peter Leko vs Alexander Grischuk.

The tournament will go on till September 30 and offers prize money of $1.3 million. The championship will be played on double round robin basis under classical chess rules and all the games could last up to seven hours. There will be 14 games in all and the new world champion will be crowned based on the number of points, he scored from these outings.

Standing after Round Seven: 1. Viswanathan Anand (5 points), 2. Boris Gelfand (4.5), 3. Vladimir Kramnik (4), 4. Alexander Grischuk (3.5) 5-6. Peter Leko, Levon Aronian (3) 7-8. Alexander Morozevich, Peter Svidler (2.5).