MONACO, March 16 (PTI): World champion Viswanathan Anand continued with his clinical performance and defeated Russian Alexander Grischuk 1.5-0.5 in the fourth round of 20th Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament here.
The triumph over Grischuk came in the rapid game and this was the third mini-match that Anand won following his victory over Boris Gelfand of Israel in the third round.
It may be recalled that Anand had beaten Veselin Topalov in the opener and had then played out two draws with Vladimir Kramnik in the second round.
Levon Aronian of Armenia and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, however, remained at the helm following fine performances.
While Carlsen accounted for young Anish Giri of Holland 1.5-0.5, Aronian defeated Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine by a similar margin to remain on the leaderboard in the combined standings.
With seven rounds or 14 games still remaining, both Aronian and Carlsen have six points apiece and Anand is half a point behind. In the blindfold standings, Aronian and Grischuk share the lead on three points each while Anand is tied third along with Carlsen and Azerbaijani Vugar Gashimov.
Carlsen leads solely in the rapid section with 3.5 points from four games and is closely pursued by Anand, Aronian and Topalov half a point adrift.
The blindfold game between Grischuk and Anand was the first one to finish after a mere 20 moves when a move repetition forced a draw. The World Champion went for the Berlin Defence of the Ruy Lopez and once again proved its solidity.
