Small lead for Anand against Leko
Viswanathan Anand leads 2.5-1.5 in his rapid match against Peter Leko in Miskolc, Hungary. The Indian won the second match game with White while all other games ended in a draw.
In Miskolc, Hungary Peter Leko has been playing rapid matches against different opponents for years in May. This year he faces the strongest opponent possible: Viswanathan Anand, the current World Champion and 11-times rapid World Champion.Like Ivanchuk and Navara last week, the two are playing an eight-game rapid match. Venue is the National Theater in Miskolc; the dates are June 2nd to 7th. After four games Anand is leading 2.5-1.5; the final four games will be played on Saturday and Sunday, at 16:30 and 18:00 CET.So far the match has seen no less than three Gr?ºnfeld Defences. It must have been a slight surprise for Leko to see his opponent going for this defence in the very first game, which looked like a reasonably correct and balanced draw.In game two Anand went for 1.d4, not that remarkable anymore by now, to which Leko also answered with the Gr?ºnfeld! This time White got an advantage soon in the form of a strong passed d-pawn, typical for this opening when things don't go according to plan for Black. When White's bishop became clearly stronger than Black's knight and on top of that Anand started running with his a-pawn as well, it was game over.In game 3 Leko quite easily equalized in a Meran Semi-Slav and then the Hungarian gained a nice plus with White (in the form of the bishop pair) against Anand's second Gr?ºnfeld. He got quite far, but too many pawns were exchanged and at some point the World Champion could give a full knight to reach a dead drawn BB-B ending.[TABLE=738]
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