Anand opens with a flourish
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Chennai, September 2: Top seed Viswanathan Anand of India opened his Fide World Cup chess campaign in style, outwitting Mohamed Tissir (Morocco) in his Group D first round encounter at Shenyang on Friday. FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman (Russia), who is in Anand's group, started with a draw against Alexander Tkachiev (France).

Among top players, Peter Svidler of Russia scored over Alexei Fedorov (Belarus) and Evgeny Bareev (Rus) defeated Aimen Rizouk (Algeria) in Group C. The battle between Russian-mates in Group A Alexei Dreev and Alexander Morozevich ended in truce. Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) Nigel Short (England) encounter in Group B ended in draw.

On the distaff side, World Champion Xie Jun of China was held to a draw by Natalia Zhukova in Group D. Pia Cramling of Sweden made a good start, beating former World Champion Maya Chiburdanidze (Georgia) in Group C.

Results: Men: (Round 1): Group A: A Alexandrov (Belarus) 0.5 drew Z Azmaiparashvili (Geo) 0.5, G Milos (Bra) 0.5 drew B Gulko (US) 0.5, A Dreev (Rus) 0.5 drew A Morozevich (Rus). Group B: V Ivanchuk (Ukr) 0.5 drew N Short (Eng) 0.5, Xu Jun (Chn) 0.5 drew R Ponomariov (Ukr) 0.5, M Gurevich (Bel) 0.5 drew Ye Jiangchuan (Chn) 0.5. Group C: P Svidler (Rus) 1 bt A Fedorov (Belarus) 0, E Bareev (Rus) 1 bt A Rizouk (Alg) 0, Zhang Zhong (Chn) 0.5 drew S Movsesian (Rus) 0.5. Group D: V Anand (Ind) 1 bt M Tissir (Mor) 0, B Gelfand (Isr) 0.5 drew P Tregubov (Rus) 0.5, A Khalifman (Rus) 0.5 drew V Tkachiev (Fra) 0.5.

Women: Group A: Xu Yuhua (Chn) 1 bt E Kovalevskaya 0, Zhu Chen (Chn) 1 bt A Maric (Yug) 0, A Payet 0 lost to R Pokorna 1. Group B: C Amura 1 bt KJ Mouradian 0, A Stefanova 0.5 drew A Skripchenko 0.5, Wang Pin 0.5 drew Qin Kanying 0.5. Group C: Wang Yu 1 bt A Kosteniuk 0, P Cramling 1 bt M Chiburdanidze 0, A Laubshner 0 lost to N Khurtsidze 1. Group D: Y Hernandez 0.5 drew Wang Lei 0.5, N Zhukova 0.5 drew Xie Jun 0.5, I Krush 0.5 drew Hoang Thanh Trang 0.5.

Anand vs Tissir
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 Be7 8. O-O-O O-O 9. Nb3 Qb6 10. f3 Rd8 11. Nb5 Rd7 12. Qe1 Qd8 13. g4 b6 14. h4 Bb7 15. N5d4 Nd4 16. Nd4 Rc8 17. Kb1 a6 18. Bc1 Rdc7 19. g5 Nd7 20. Rh2 d5 21. e5 Bc5 22. h5 Bd4 23. Rd4 Nf8 24. Bd3 Rd7 25. g6 1-0.

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