Must-win situation for Anand at Sofia

In a must-win situation, Viswanathan Anand will start the final lap of the MTEL Masters Chess tournament with world No 3 Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the sixth round game to be played today. Trailing the two tournament leaders, Russian Vladimir Kramnik and Brit Michael Adams, it is high time for Anand to get back to his winning ways otherwise it might just be too late in this category-20 six-players double round-robin tournament.

At the half way stage, both Kramnik and Adams are sitting pretty with 3 points each in their kitty and they are followed by Anand and former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, who both have 2.5 apiece. With five games still to come, Topalov and world’s top woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary are sharing the fifth or last spot on two points each.

Anand’s games against Topalov have been quite interesting in the past and with white pieces to back him, the Bulgarian can be a dangerous opponent. A co-winner of Linares Chess tournament earlier this along with now-retired Garry Kasparov of Russia, Topalov is expected to go all out in this game against Anand.

Unfortunately for himself, Anand has not been able to convert those slightly advantageous positions into a full point so far. He was better in games against Topalov, Polgar and Adams while his other two games against Ponomariov and Kramnik were short affairs.