World Cup champion Viswanathan Anand started off with a quick 28-move draw against Azerbaijani sensation Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov in the opening round of the 65th Corus Grandmaster Group 'A' tournament at Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands.
Stealing day one honours was World Champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia who won the public prize for the best game of the day by crushing Polish GM Michal Krasenkow.
Defending champion Evgeny Bareev, who defeated World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov, scored the only other victory of the day.
In the Grandmasters Group 'B' event being organized simultaneously, GM Koneru Humpy held GM Jan Van Der Wiel of Netherlands to an easy draw with black pieces.
Defending champion Dutch GM Friso Nijboer, who defeated former World Junior Champion Peter Acs of Hungary, was impressive in this section.
There were as many as five drawn results out of seven in the main event but all the games were fought hard and, some, till the last nail.
Anand is playing a Classical time control event after a gap of nearly one year, the only exception being a couple of games he played against Karpov enroute to his victory in the Eurotel Trophy at Prague in Czech Republic.
Many hail Teimour Radjabov as future World Champion and he did not disappoint his fans in the first game of the first major Classical event in his career. Taking his chances in the MacCutcheon variation of the French defence with black pieces, Radjabov had little trouble securing an easy half point.
Anand was unable do much in the opening and conceded a balanced middle game to Radjabov after fighting out the intricacies of black's minor weaknesses on the King side.
Successfully guiding his king to safety on the queenside, Radjabov maintained a level position and the draw was agreed to in 28 moves.
Karpov, 51, is fresh from a grand victory over world's highest rated player Garry Kasparov - once his arch-rival in a rapid chess match and his hunger for more victories was eminent the way he handled the black side of a Queen's Indian defence.
Krasenkow, winner of the group 'B' event last year, had no answers to a brilliantly attack unleashed against his king and fell hook, line and sinker against the senior-most competitor in the fray.
It all started with a fine exchange sacrifice on the 22nd move after Karpov ominously built his position on both flanks. Krasenkow was forced to take the bait after which his position collapsed. In a game that lasted just 29 moves, Karpov sacrificed a rook to deliver the knockout punch.
