Anand’s birthday bash for Nikolich

With the Indian Grandmaster adopting the Slav defence, the two players quickly reached the standard position of the Moscow variation. Anand had a slightly cramped position at one stage but it was compensated by his bishop pair.

In the middle game Anand maneuvered his pieces brilliantly within the limited space and forced Nikolich to weaken his position. Finally the Indian penetrated in the enemy camp through the open D file and checkmated his opponent with a spectacular rook sacrifice.

In another match, GM Yasser Seirawan of USA created a sensation by making short work of Ukranian Vassily Ivanchuk. The latter, opting for the king’s Indian defence for the first time, made a total mess of his game.

Seirawan caught Ivanchuk’s king in the centre and checkmated his highly-rated opponent in just twenty two moves to collect one full point.

Russian champion Peter Svidler played a fine attacking game to outclass Utut Adianto of Indonesia. Adianto played the Ruy Lopez open variation in his natural original style and was crushed by the Russian in the middle-game.

Judit Polgar of Hungary made some serious strategical mistakes against compatriot Zoltan Almasi’s Sicilian Alapin and was lucky to escape with a draw in a difficult ending.

British GM Michale Adams played an aggressive attacking game to score over G Georgadze of Georgia whereas Russian GM Evgeny Bareev played the best technical game of the day to beat GM Vladimir Malaniuk in a Leningrad Dutch defence.

In the women’s candidates’ tournament, WGM Alisa Galiamova of Ukraine joined Maya Chiburdanidze, Ketevan Arakhamia and Alisa Marich in the lead by scoring over Nino Gurieli in a long technical battle. WGM Nana Ioseliani of Georgia scored an upset victory over highly-rated GM Pia Cramling of Sweden.