Anand wins world chess meet

MEXICO CITY, September 30: Viswanathan Anand regained the World Championship after a gap of nearly seven years, drawing his 14th and final round game in quick time against Hungarian Peter Leko here.

Playing with white, the writing was already on the wall for the Indian ace as he just needed a draw and achieving it was never going to be too difficult given his stupendous form.

Anand secured nine points in all in the championship and also ended up as the only unbeaten player in the event.

The Tiger from Madras, as he is fondly called, also became the first undisputed World Chess Champion since 1993 as this world championship was the culmination of the reunification of the chess world.

Besides, Anand will keep his number one ranking in ELO ratings due to be released on the October 1.

For the records, Anand scored four victories and drew ten games for his title triumph and in fact draws in last three rounds were enough to see him through.

"It came quite easy, obviously as drawing the last three games was good enough for the championship," Anand said after the final round.

"It dawned on me yesterday that I was going to win it, but still I had to come and finish the work today," he added.

It was a Marshall Gambit, the flavour of the event that gave Anand the much needed half point. Leko could not have tried much in the opening and the game petered out to a draw in just 20 moves.

Source: sports.indiatimes.com