Anand realises a dream (Article Courtesy - The Hindu 30/01/2006)

NEW DELHI: Viswanathan Anand realised a long-cherished dream of crossing the rating barrier of 2800 points by winning the prestigious Corus chess tournament for a record fifth time at Wijk aan Zee, near Amsterdam, on Sunday.

With defending champion Peter Leko holding World champion and overnight leader Veselin Topalov to a draw, Anand pulled off a spectacular last-round victory over Boris Gelfand for a fitting finale.

Anand and Topalov aggregated nine points each from this 13-round event but the Indian was given the trophy for scoring more victories with black pieces. In a field with an average rating of 2716, both players performed at a rating of 2850.

In the process, Anand joined Gary Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Topalov in the list of those who have crossed the rating barrier of 2800 in their careers. The rating represents the playing strength of an individual. Anand's current rating is 2792 and Topalov's 2801.

Most successful

Anand's fifth title also made him the most successful player at Wijk aan Zee. He moved ahead of the pack that consisted of four-time winners like Holland's Max Euwe (1940, 1942, 1952 and 1958), Hungary's Lajos Portisch (1965, 1972, 1975 and 1978) and Soviet-turned-Swiss citizen Victor Korchnoi (1968, 1971, 1984 and 1987).

In 1998, Anand topped a four-way tie with Bosnia and Herzegovina's Nikolic Predrag and Hungarians Zoltan Ribli and Gyula Sax. He shared the title with Kramnik in 1998 and won outright in 2003 and 2004.

The exciting final day saw Anand's task cut out once Leko held Topalov in 40 moves of Sicilian Najdorf. Playing white, Anand had found a chink in Gelfand's armour after the latter had made a poor rook-move on the 16th turn. Anand soon sacrificed a rook for a minor piece, collected a couple of pawns and completed a comfortable victory in 66 moves.

Article Courtesy - The Hindu 31/01/2006