World Champion NIIT Brand Ambassador Viswanathan Anand won the "19th Ciudad de Villarroboledo tournament". Anand finished on 7.5 points along with World championship Runner Up Alexei Shirov. Due to a better competitive score Anand clinched the top spot.

The event was held in Villarrobledo , in the Castilla La Mancha province of Spain. The two day event attracted 36 Grand Masters and 22 International Masters. The attractive field of top players make it easily the strongest rapid chess event in recent times. In total 193 players took part in the event.

Anand created a history of sorts by winning the event three times , namely 1996, 1998 and 2001. He has played this event thrice and has won it on each of his appearances.

The nine round event played over the week end reached it's climax on the second day when Anand had to win in the last round to win the tournament.

On day one , Anand attained a perfect score of five out of five. He played an interesting mix of players like Fernandez, Barria, Oscar de la Riva , Agrest and finally against his trainer Elizbar Ubilava. The game did provide a lot of entertainment to the spectators who were very curious to see player and trainer fight it out on the chess board. After the game Ubi , as he is called affectionately analysed the game with Anand. The two commented" it is not very easy to play with a person With whom you work . He knows your drawbacks and your strengths. But the draw turned out like that and we had to play each other."

Ubi opted on a system that they had never studied together - the Alekhine's defence. Anand got a space advantage and developed a strong kingside attack. Ubilava defended well, but couldn't stop Anand's d-pawn queening.

On day two , Anand made three draws against Ljubojevic, Shirov and Kolev. The first two games were tough theoretical encounters while Kolev defended a rook ending resourcefully to share the point.

Shirov beat Ljubojevic in the penultimate round and had a half point lead over Anand . In the last game Anand played the white pieces against Gofshtein Zeev-Alon, GM from Israel . Anand obtained the Maroczy bind from the Sicilian Paulsen. When he broke through on the kingside with his f-pawn, Zeev-Alon gave a pawn to take his king to safety, but the extra pawn proved decisive.

Meanwhile the last round game between Shirov and Kollev ended in a short draw not lasting more than a few minutes. Anand took the trophy on tiebreak due to the higher score of his opponents.

On his win in the event for the third time , Anand said "I am satisfied with my performance. I played some good games . The competition was really tough as a lot of the top names were playing. My best game was against Agrest - it's rare to win so easily with Black in the English opening against a tough player."