World Cup champion Vishwanathan Anand was brilliance personified as he outwitted Latvia-born Spaniard Alexei Shirov to consolidate his lead after the 10th round in the 65th Corus chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, the Netherlands, on Thursday.
The Indian ace maintained his position atop the table on 7 points after 10 games. He is followed by the world's highest rated woman, Judit Polgar of Hungary, who is half a point behind.
A pack of five players, including the Russian duo of Vladimir Kramnik and defending champion Evgeny Bareev, local star Loek van Wely, World championship finalist Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Azerbaijani sensation Teimour Radjabov, all with 5.5 points, are in third place.
GM Koneru Humpy struggled yet again and went down to GM Dennis de Vregut to languish on 3.5 points along with Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia and Peter Acs of Hungary.
Anand had to flex his defensive muscles yet again and was rewarded a full point against Shirov. The opening featured Caro Kann defence where the Indian ace, playing black, seized the upper hand following an erratic play by Shirov, who went all out for an attack with a piece sacrifice very early in the advance variation.
Anand's king was looking in some dangers in the middle game but a brilliantly crafted 14th move turned the tide in his favour. Castling quickly thereafter, Anand steered his king to safety and pocketed a couple of pawns on the king side to march ahead with his minor pieces.
Shirov banked his hopes on queenside pawns but they were contained quite effectively from a decisive advance. The trade of queens on the 31st move sealed Shirov's fate completely and he resigned after 36 moves.
"It was nice to win against a strong player with black pieces. In general I was winning the game after, maybe, 15 moves, but it was not easy to convert this advantage because it was a very complex position and I was very careful... of course it finally came," Anand said after the game.
The 10th round compensated for the uneventful ninth round with as many as six out of the seven games ending decisively.
Even the lone draw, between Bareev and former World champion Anatoly Karpov lasted 60 moves.
Three more rounds remain in this category-19 tournament.
In the Grandmaster B tournament, Zhang Zhong was back with increased vigour and stretched his lead to a massive 2.5 points after drubbing Dutch GM Friso Nijboer.
Zhong has amassed 9 points from ten games so far and is followed by Daniel Stellwagen of the Netherlands, on 6.5 points.
On the receiving end of Judit Polgar's assault, was Alexander Grischuk, who got a taste of the finest mixture of Hungarian counter-attack and defence.
It was a Sicilian Taimanov, wherein the Russian opted for a fashionable variation with white pieces. By opting out to castle, Polgar invited a piece sacrifice in the middle game and Grischuk took the bait declaring his intentions of a bloody battle.
Polgar walked her king to safety on the queenside, rolled her pawns to create complete disarray around Grischuk's king, manoeuvred her pieces exceedingly well to knock down the vicious looking white pawn on the kingside, and in the end gave back the extra piece to romp home after 47 moves.
Kramnik came back strongly to beat Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria with white pieces. The Bulgarian has probably been the most uncompromising player in this tournament, and, as if proving that to himself, went for the sharp Benko Gambit with black pieces.
Kramnik was in full swing right till the very end. A favourable series of exchanges after giving back the pawn led the game into a rook and pawns endgame where Kramnik's passed pawn on the queen rook file gave him the decisive advantage.
Topalov tried his best to hold on but Kramnik's rook sortie forced him to part with a pawn and the rest was child's play.
The game lasted 57 moves.
Loek Van Wely met his nemesis in World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine. The Dutchman had been flying high over the past ten days and even this loss has not pushed him far behind in the standing list.
Ponomariov was up against a Sicilian and went for the Rossolimo attack. Van Wely's erroneous plan in the middle game found him defending an inferior rooks and pawns endgame with white's pawn on the seventh rank ably defended by the rooks.
Ponomariov created threats that could not be parried and eventually and got the much-needed full point after 59 moves.
After nine consecutive draws, Ivanchuk finally punished an overtly ambitious Jan Timman of Netherlands. The Ruy Lopez gave Timman worries on all parts of the board and he landed a piece down in just 18 moves.
