Linares (Spain): World champion Vishwanathan Anand suffered a rather uncharacteristic loss against top rated Gary Kasparov in the seventh round of the Super Grand Masters Chess tournament.

Russian Grand Master Vladimir Kramnik emerged sole leader at the half way mark of the tournament with Anand, Kasparov and Peter Leko were joint second, a half-point behind. Kramnik held Hungarian Leko for a draw in the seventh round.

The Indian Grand Master, playing with black pieces, opted for the Caro Kann defence and maintained the balance with exchanges at regular intervals.

Kasparov could do no better than enter a rook and minor piece endgame wherein Anand appeared slightly worse but by no means lost. A further trade of Bishops saw the two wizards battling out a pure rook and pawns endgame that should have been drawn with correct play by Anand.

However disaster struck and Anand made the decisive mistake on the 57th move allowing Kasparov to wrap the issue four moves later. Kasparov has always seemed to have Anand's number; the Indian has not beaten Kasparov at slow time control since 1995.

Kasparov has won Linares, considered the 'Wimbledon' of chess, every year since 1999. He tied for first with Kramnik in 2000. Anand won in 1998.

PTI