Anand beats Dreev to enter quarters

Defending champion Vishwanathan Anand was brilliance personified as he outclassed Alexey Dreev of Russia in all departments of the game to storm into the quarter-finals of the World chess championship at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow on Wednesday.

Playing white in the reverse game of his clash against Dreev, Anand opened with his pet King pawn and faced the Caro Kann defence. The opening apparently did not come as a surprise to Anand as Dreev is famous for his handling of the French defence.

Attesting this, Grandmaster Elibzar Ubilava, who is Anand's second, said, "Yes of course we expected him to play the Caro Kann. Anand plays almost everything against it."

Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Evegeny Bareev of Russia were the other two players to advance to the fifth round without being stretched into the tie-breaker.

Anand's understanding of the game soon came to the fore as he steadily deployed his forces in one of the main classical lines of the set up.

Anand got a slight advantage in the middlegame as Dreev chose less trodden paths. Dreev's 14th move was a relatively new idea and Anand had to think for a while to find the most convincing path.

The game took a decisive turn after the Indian's 22nd move when he collected Dreev's Bishop for his Knight and soon posted his Bishop in the centre to exert pressure on the king side with his Queen and Rook.

In trying to work out a counter-active plan, Dreev miscalculated a simple combination on the 27th move and Anand won a couple of pawns by force to enter a pure Rook and pawns endgame.

The technicalities were still not over but Anand showed his prowess in the endgame too with an excellent pawn sacrifice on his 34th move that enabled the advance of his passed Queen Rook pawn.

Dreev tried further complications blocking Anand's Rook to the best square, but Anand was equally up to the task as he manoeuvred it from the eighth rank to romp home in 42 moves.

Anand, who drew his first game with black pieces against Dreev on Monday, had to win to avoid a third tie-breaker in four rounds which he did in style.

Anand will now take on the winner of the match between last year's runner up Alexei Shirov of Spain and Veselin Topolov of Bulgaria which moved into the tie-break.

"It looks easy but it was complicated. In fact, somehow my pieces just got rolling. I had a nice time basically. He proposed a draw after playing the 24th move thinking that he had equalised but I had seen that nice trick with my Bishop sacrifice that swapped his pawns on the kingside," Anand said after his win.

"The end game looked a little difficult but I just found the right moves," Anand said.

Vassily Ivanchuk moved past China's Ye Jiangchuan in 23 moves from a French defence, which went into the Nimzo variation.

Ivanchuk, who had won the first game, drew the second easily and progressed. He will meet the winner of the Predrag Nikolic and Joel Lautier match which saw both games drawn. The two are due to play the tie-breaker later on Wednesday.

The third player to win in regulation games was Bareev, who completed a 2-0 win over Jaan Ehlvest of Estonia.

Ehlvest, down by a game, went all out for a win, but did not succeed in an Advance variation of the Caro-Kann. In fact, his adventurism actually cost him the game and he lost both.

Alexander Morozevich, who had been shocked in the first game by young Ruslan Ponmariov, hit back in the second.

It was a Ruy Lopez game with Chigorin variation. Morozevich as usual played a sharp line and won through in 33 moves as Ponmariov could do nothing more than appreciate his rival's fine play.

In the women's section, Maya Chiburdanidze bounced back when she beat China-born Dutch player Peng Zhaoqin in a Semi Slav. The piece sacrifice after the opening stunned Peng who collapsed after that.

Peter Svidler and Michael Adams played a closed Ruy Lopez and after some sparring drew for the second time. Adams did have a slightly better looking position in middle game, but it was not enough.

The Nikolic-Lautier was a Queens Indian game and ended in a draw in 14 moves, which means both will now slug it out in the tie-breaker.

Shirov, playing Topalov, was engaged in the main line of the Petroff with white pieces and the game went into a draw.

Zurab Azmaiparashvili held Boris Gelfand for a second draw and took him to the tie-breaker. Their second game was a Slav defence.

Anand, V v Dreev, A
Round 4, Game 2

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Bb4+ 12. c3 Be7 13. O-O-O Ngf6 14. Kb1 O-O 15. Ne5 Qa5 16. Nxd7 Nxd7 17. Ne4 Rad8 18. Qg3 Kh8 19. Bc7 Qf5 20. f3 Rc8 21. Ka1 Nf6 22. Nd6 Bxd6 23. Bxd6 Rfd8 24. Be5 c5 25. dxc5 Nxh5 26. Rxd8+ Rxd8 27. Bxg7+ Kh7 28. Qh4 Rd2 29. Bxh6 Kxh6 30. g4 Qg5 31. Qxh5+ Qxh5 32. Rxh5+ Kg7 33. a4 Rd3 34. c6 bxc6 35. Ra5 Rxf3 36. Rxa7 e5 37. a5 Kf6 38. a6 e4 39. Ra8 Rd3 40. Re8 Rd5 41. b4 Rd7 42. c4 1-0 (Anand wins)

Earlier reports
Anand faces tough road ahead
Quick draw for Anand in round 4
Anand through to last 16
Anand settles for draw, Van Wely loses
Anand enters third round
Anand scores quick win
Anand moves into second round
Anand wins second game
Anand shocked in opening round