Anand bounces back; rout Radjabov 2-0

Monaco, Mar 19 (UNI) Viswanathan Anand bounced back hard from a shocking first round defeat routing Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan 2-0 in Round Two of the Melody Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament.

The five-time winner of this unique tournament, Anand outclassed his young opponent first in blindfold with white pieces and then repeated the effort in rapid with black pieces.

The win lifted the World No 1 to be to second in rapid standings and fourth overall with 2.5 points from four games.

In blindfold, the Anand-Radjabov game was in the Sicilian Sveshnikov and Anand won in 46 moves. In the rapid, Anand with black took 53 moves in a Nimzo Indian game.

Each round has two games with one each in blindfold and rapid. A total of 12 players figure in the tournament being held in Monaco.

Apart from Anand, the only other player to score a 2-0 verdict in second round was Vladimir Kramnik, who beat Dutch Loek Van Wely in both games. Kramnik shares the overall lead with Armenian prodigy Levan Aronian.

Aronian who won the rapid event and drew his blindfold game against Russian Peter Leko to take his tally to 3.5 points after a 2-0 shut out in first round.

Round 2 Standings: Blindfold: 1. Kramnik 2.0; 2. Morozevich, Aronian, Svidler and Ivanchuk 1.5; 6. Gelfand, Vallejo Pons and Anand 1.0; 9. Leko, and Carlsen 0.5; 11. Radjabov and Van Wely 0 Rapid: 1. Aronian 2.0; 2. Anand, Ivanchuk and Kramnik 1.5; 5.

Morozevich, Carlsen, Gelfand and Leko 1.0; 9. Radjabov, Svidler and Vallejo Pons 0.5; 12. Van Wely 0; Combined: 1. Aronian and Kramnik 3.5; 3. Ivanchuk 3.0; 4. Morozevich and Anand 2.5; 6. Gelfand and Svidler 2.0; 8. Leko, Carlsen and Vallejo Pons 1.5; 11. Radjabov 0.5; 12. Van Wely 0 UNI