Best of Anand is yet to come

Viswanathan Anand8217;s victory in the Corus Chess tournament can be the beginning of another great year for the Indian ace if the past rec...

Viswanathan Anand8217;s victory in the Corus Chess tournament can be the beginning of another great year for the Indian ace if the past records are to be believed.

Anand won the event for a record fifth time and will cross the 2800 ELO barrier for the first time in his career. In all, Anand scored nine points out of a possible 13 and tied for first along with world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. The Indian8217;s tiebreaker was superior than the Bulgarian. In the post tourney conference, both Anand and Topalov felt it was a fair result reflecting that they played the best chess.

Both said they were happy about the competition between them that pushed each other to 5 both scored six victories, one loss and remaining draws which effectively means plus 5 in chess.

Anand also admitted that he was happy to be over 2800. Anand will next participate in the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament to be held at Monaco in March.

It turned out to be a tough contest between Anand and Topalov right from the beginning of this first major event of the year. Just a round to go Topalov was leading the tables with 8.5 points and it was an amazing photo finish by Anand who defeated Boris Gelfand of Israel to catch up with the leader who was held to a draw by last year8217;s winner Peter Leko of Hungary.

It all started with first round victory for both the eventual winners and Topalov met with his nemesis in Michael Adams of England in the second round itself. After losing to Adams, many thought Topalov will need some time to recuperate especially since this was his first loss in more than six months.

However, the Bulgarian was relentless in the next two rounds and scored thumping victories over Frenchman Etienne Bacrot of France and Loek van Wely of Holland and caught Anand in lead who had by then beaten Vasily Ivanchuk of Ukraine apart from two draws. From this point till the very end of the category-17 tournament, both Anand and Topalov remained neck and neck. Anand defeated Leko in round five but lost to Kamsky in the next round.