Monte Carlo: Vishwanathan Anand outclassed Loek Van Wely of The Netherlands to move to the joint second position in the overall standings of the 12th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess tournament under way here.

Playing with white pieces, Anand gave a positional tutorial to the Dutchman in the Blindfold category. Opening the game with the king pawn, he used the Closed Sicilian variation to the fullest to get the better of Wely.

The Indian ace got excellent advantage with his queenside pawn majority after the trade-off of queens on the 20th move and slowly worked his way to win a pawn on the 33rd. The Dutchman was unable to put up a show and resigned on the 39th move.

However, Wely fought hard in the Rapid variety pressing for an advantage in the middle game arising from the Queens Indian defence. Anand, on the defensive, put up a brave show and steered the game to a level rook and pawns endgame, where a draw was agreed on the 72nd move, outclassing Wely 1.5-0.5.

In other games, Super Grandmasters Champion Peter Leko of Hungary humbled Spaniard Alexei Shirov 2-0 to emerge sole leader with 3.5 point from four games played so far.

Anand ranks joint second along with Vladimir Kramnik and Evgeny Bareev (both Russia), Boris Gelfand (Israel) and Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine). In the category standings, Anand ranks joint fifth in the Rapid variety, considered to be his forte. The group is led by Rapid defending champion Alexander Morozevich of Russia.

In the Blindfold category, the Indian is fourth, while Leko, Kramnik and Ivanchuk with two points each are joint leaders.

PTI