26 March,2009 03:22 PM IST | | PTI
A rare queen blunder against Russian Alexander Morozevich cost world champion Viswanathan Anand dearly as he lost the lead in the 10th and penultimate round of Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament here.
It was a roughly balanced middle game position in the blindfold game wherein Anand went for a long calculation and mistakenly played a queen move which was suppose to be the second move in his calculation.
The Indian ace drew the return rapid game and remained in contention for top honours even as Levon Aronian of Armenia jumped in to sole lead at the expense of Chinese Wang Yue by a 1.5-0.5 margin.
The shocker of the day was registered by Vladimir Kramnik of Russia who defeated overnight joint leader Magnus Carlsen of Norway 1.5-0.5 winning the blindfold game in just 20 moves with black pieces.
As things stand with just one round to come, Aronian has 13 points in his kitty while Anand and Carlsen are now joint second in the combined standings a full point behind the Armenian.
Kramnik is sole fourth on 11.5 points while Hungarian Peter Leko is a distant fifth with 10 points.
