Now <i>this</i> is how you must play it

Results of round nine

	Blindfold	Rapid
	Morozevich 1-0 Bareev	Bareev 1-0 Morozevich
	Anand 1-0 Almasi	Almasi 1/2 Anand
	Ivanchuk 0-1 Topalov	Topalov 1-0 Ivanchuk
	Ljubojevic 0-1 Shirov	Shirov 1-0 Ljubojevic
	Gelfand 0-1 Kramnik	Kramnik 1/2 Gelfand
	van Wely 0-1 Leko	Leko 1-0 van Wely

Anand beat Almasi 1.5-0.5 and kept his lead, with Peter Leko and Veselin Topalov, who won both their games, in hot pursuit. Almasi played the Berlin against Anand in the blindfold and was beaten in a rook ending. In their rapid game, as Jeroen van den Berg reports on the Amber web site, Anand finished with 27 minutes and 37 seconds left, 2 minutes and 37 seconds more than his start time. The game was drawn.

Veselin Topalov beat Ivanchuk in the blindfold game when the latter blundered in a bad position. The Bulgarian went on to gain a big advantage in the rapid game, where the following position occurred:

Position after 27...Qe4. Topalov continued 28.Rdf1 and went on to win forty moves later, when in fact he had a quick decapitation strike at his disposal. We are sure you will see it immediately.

Evgeny Bareev is leading in the rapid section but has only managed to score two points in the blindfold. Vladimir Kramnik, who had lost disastrously to Morozevich in the previous round, beat Gelfand 1.5-0.5 (winning the blindfold game with black). Remarkably Kramnik has not won a single game in the rapid section so far.

• Official site
• Event intro
• All games played so far (in zipped PGN)

Standings after round nine

Picture gallery

A picture of concentration and determination: Boris Gelfand

Gelfand vs Kramnik, with a GM photographer in the background

Anand vs Almasi, with the typically tiny audience in Monaco

Alexander Morozevich vs Evgeny Bareev. Both won one game today.

Analysing together in the press area: Ljubojevich, Topalov, Anand and a dejected Ivanchuk. The quick win Topalov missed in the diagram above was 28.Rxf8+! Kxf8 29.Rf1+ Ke7 30.Qg7+ and mate to follow.

The daily table soccer matches, here between Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam of New in Chess, Jeroen Piket, Loek van Wely and his girlfriend Marion.