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World No. 2 GM Viswanathan Anand of India defeated GM Alexei Shirov of Spain 1.5-0.5 in the two-game final to win the Advanced Chess title. Advanced chess is where a human uses support from a computer to play his moves. Each player receives 60 minutes per game. The hardware and software offered are identical and the players sit facing the computer and don't face each other. 

Anand, capitalised on a minor advantage to win the first game and then warded off futile efforts of Shirov to draw the second and retain the title at Junta de León Building, Leon, Spain on June 4, 2000. The World No 2 had won the title here last year by trouncing former World Champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia 5-1. It was a sweet revenge for Anand who had lost to Shirov in the Linares and Monte Carlo tournaments earlier this year. Anand used Hiarcs7.32, programmed by Mark Uniacke, an Englishman, while Shirov preferred Fritz.

In the first game, both Anand and Shirov followed routine theory of French Winawer till the 10th move before Shirov deviated. Anand, dismantled the queenside of Shirov by advancing his queen-rook pawn to "a6" and exchanged his light square bishop to exert pressure. Anand gained a minuscule advantage, thanks to his centralised king after the players traded queens. Further trading of pieces later a minor piece endgame was reached where Anand retained the initiative. As the pressure started to build, Shirov tried to create a fortress by moving his king-knight pawn. What followed was a spectator's delight as Anand sacrificed his knight for a pawn, but in the resulting position, Shirov was defenseless against the march of white's king pawns and resigned after 39 moves. Shirov made desperate attempts to win the second game and force tie-breaker, but Anand played cautiously and thwarted all attempts. 

In an emotion-packed day two, Vishy Anand advanced to final, besting World No.1 woman player, Judit Polgar of Hungary after a stiff resistance. Anand, drew the advanced chess games 1-1, and won the blitz tie-break 1.5-0.5, drawing with black and then coming on to win the white game. After Anand missed a win in game one with white the trend of the match seemed against him. But he managed to keep his nerves and drew the reverse game. For the last three games Anand took just three minutes and under. In the blitz games Anand was at home with exceptional speed behind his play. The decisive second blitz game with Anand having the advantage of playing white opened with the queen pawn and won a piece to record victory in 68 moves. The Indian took his chances to outwit Judit who was a bit slower in all four games. Anand nevertheless survived some anxious moments to reach the final. 

In an exclusive interview to our correspondent, Anand said "I am very satisfied with my performance in Advance Chess. Also I must say that generally I am quite efficient with Computer. I manage to look at mostly relevent lines and I don't let the Computer lead me astray. Obviously both my results were very good - beating Karpov 5-1 last year and winning this year. Well it was nice to beat Shirov. He has been in very good form these days. He has an impressive two months and has been in good shape. Beating him brought my confidence back".

Vijay Kumar

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