MOSCOW, Dec 2: The top two seeds at the FIDE world chess championship, Viswanathan Anand of India and Michael Adams of England, both drew against their opponents in the second game of the third round on Sunday.
Both now face a playoff later Sunday.
Defending FIDE world champion Anand agreed to a draw after only thirteen moves against France’s Vladislav Tkachiev. The match pitting Adams against Vadim Zvjaginsev of Russia also ended in a draw. Both top players also ended their games Saturday in a draw, making the playoff necessary.
Anand had the black side of an English Four Knights opening, which has been a staple at the highest level games for many years. Black concedes the bishop pair but inflicts doubled pawns on White and has free development.
Anand and Tkachiev were still well within known chess theory when they agreed to a draw and shook hands.
Third seed Alexander Morozevich of Russia eliminated Belgium’s Mikhail Gurevich with a draw. Fourth seed Vassily Ivanchuk of the Ukraine advanced with a win over Emil Sutovsky of Israeli. Sixth seed Evgeny Bareev of Russia recovered from Saturday’s loss to beat his countryman Konstantin Sakaev and force a playoff.
The tournament is organized as a series of two-game elimination matches, with rapid and blitz playoffs in the case of ties. The finals will be held here in January.
Sixty-four top women players are also competing under the same format for the women’s world championship. The world’s strongest woman chess player, Judit Polgar of Hungary, played in the men’s championship and was eliminated in the second round.
The first and third seeds in the women’s tournament, Alisa Galliamova and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, both of Russia, were eliminated by Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia and Nino Khurtidze of Georgia, respectively.
Second seed and former women’s world champion Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia advanced at the expense of Lithuania’s Dagne Ciuksyte.
The only American player left in either tournament, Camilla Baginskaite, won to force a playoff against Xu Yuhua of China.
The fourth round will begin on Monday.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Braingames world champion Vladimir Kramnik and former world champion Garry Kasparov, both bitter rivals of FIDE, were due to play the second game of their exhibition match on Sunday. Their first game was drawn in only 17 moves.
They will play 20 games at various time controls for a purse of dlrs 500,000.
Chess has had two world champions since 1993, when then-world champion Kasparov broke away from FIDE and formed the Professional Chess Association. He defended his title under the PCA’s auspices against Short in 1993 and against Anand in 1995. The PCA disbanded in 1998.
In 2000, Kasparov lost a match to Vladimir Kramnik, sponsored by Braingames.net, an Internet start-up company. Kramnik is scheduled to defend his title next October against the winner of a qualifying event in July.
Kasparov, Kramnik, and Anand are ranked first, second, and third in the world respectively.—APP/AP