Anand leads Desafio in Brazil

Perhaps the most famous chess event in Brazilian history wasn't performed by a Brazilian. Henrique Mecking's 1973 Interzonal win at Petropolis was the greatest achievement by a native son on home soil. The 21-year-old finished a half-point ahead of Geller, Polugaevsky, and Portisch. And yet it is the 45-board blindfold simultaneous exhibition by Argentine Miguel Najdorf in 1947 that comes to mind when you think of chess in Brazil and chess in Sao Paulo.

This year Brazil's largest city has organized an impressive chess festival as part of the city's 450th anniversary celebrations. A giant simul started things off, with ten titled players taking on the public. Then the main event, the Desafio (challenge), started. It's a double round-robin rapid tournament with Anand and Anatoly Karpov taking on top Brazilians Milos, Vescovi, and Leitao, plus the Chilean Morovic. On Saturday there was a 24-board simul by Garry Kasparov, who is also presenting the Brazilian edition of his Predecessors book (translated by Vescovi) and giving several speeches at a business management seminar while in Brazil.

Desafio de Xadrez – Sao Paulo, Brazil – Aug 20-23 • Official site
Standings after round four • View all games online

After four of ten rounds India's Vishy Anand has a half-point lead and is looking as invincible as ever. He's hot off big wins in Dortmund and Mainz and has been very efficient in Sao Paulo so far. He drew both his blacks and won both his whites. Karpov has specialized in rapid chess in recent years but is clearly out of form. He started with a loss to Vescovi in just 22 moves and is the only player yet to win a game.