Wijk Aan Zee: Viswanathan Anand survived a few anxious moments, including a checkmate attempt by his rival, before prevailing over Maxim Matlakov in the first round of Tata Steel Masters Chess tournament here Sunday.
Coming into the event after his title-win at the World Rapid Championship, Anand came up with some fine manoeuvres before dodging the checkmate attempt by the Russian.
The Indian ace is playing in this 80th edition after a gap of four years but proved once again that it remains his favourite hunting ground. A winner here five times, a record that he shares with World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Anand went for complications right from the beginning when he allowed Matlakov to break through on the queen side in a closed Ruy Lopez.
The Russian managed to weaken white’s king side and threatened a beautiful checkmate vide queen sacrifice at one point. Anand came out of that but not without an error that could have left him a pawn less.
However, Matlakov missed his chance and then was subjected to a lesson in a major piece endgame. Anand’s queen and rook dominated the proceedings once the Indian won a pawn and though the technicalities remained, it was all over in 53 moves.
Grandmaster B Adhiban, the other Indian in the 14-player 13-round field, started off with a draw against Peter Svidler of Russia. In the last edition, Adhiban had caused a sensation here when he finished third ahead of many stalwarts. Besides Anand, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and local hero Anish Giri were the other winners in the opening round.
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