Anand moves up to third place

Giving a fine demonstration of his attacking skills, defending champion Viswanathan Anand dealt a double blow to Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain to move to the joint third position in the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament here. With a victory each in blindfold and rapid games of round three yesterday, Anand took his tally to four points from six games played so far.

Braingames champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia played out two hard fought draws against Peter Leko of Hungary and was joined by compatriot Evgeny Bareev in the lead after the latter scored a hard-hitting 2-0 victory over Loek van Wely of Holland.

Both leaders have 4.5 points each and are followed by Anand, Leko and Russian Peter Svidler. Russian Alexander Morozevich and Spaniard Alexei Shirov are joint sixth with 3.5 points.