Anand, Kramnik draw first game

Viswanathan Anand drew the first game against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the final of the Dortmund Sparkassen chess tournament.

In the second game of the two-game final, Anand will be playing with black pieces. Given the past record between the two, chances are that the return game would also be a draw and in that case tie-break games of shorter duration will come into effect to determine the winner.

Their last decisive encounter in classical time control was three years back, in the 2001 edition of the tournament, when Kramnik had beaten an off-form Anand.

World No 2 Anand, who is a top form in the faster version of the game, will definitely like this match to be stretched to the tie-breaker stage as the Indian had already beaten world No 5 Peter Leko of Hungary in the semis via the tie-breaker.

It was an Anti-Marshall, a closed Ruy Lopez, where Anand tried his best to get past Kramnik's defences. However, the Russian was quite up to the task in defence as well as counter attack and steered the game to a draw through perpetual checks after 60 moves.