By IANS
Moscow : Viswanathan Anand was two points behind leader Vassily Ivanchuk after the first day of the two-day World Blitz Chess Championship Wednesday.
Anand, who was among the six players seeded straight into the finals, won eight of the 19 games he played on the first day. He also lost four and drew the remaining seven for a total of 11.5 points on the first day.
While Ivanchuk is leading with 13.5 points, Alexander Grischuk, the winner of the title in 2006, was second half a point behind.
Among the wins Anand had were over Alexander Morozevich, Magnus Carlsen, Michael Adams, Boris Gelfand and Anatoly Karpov.
Anand’s four losses came against Grischuk, Kamsky, Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik.
The Ukrainian veteran Ivanchuk scored 13.5 points out of 19, beating the likes of Gata Kamsky, Vladimir Kramnik, Anatoly Karpov, Gelfand, Adams, Carlsen, Alexei Shirov and Alexander Grischuk.
Grischuk had wins over Anand, Kasimdzhanov, Kramnik, Gelfand and Carlsen.
The final tournament is a double round robin with 20 participants playing each other with white and black pieces. The original number was 18, but the organisers decided to increase this to include the finalists of the 2006 World Blitz Championship in Israel, Alexander Grischuk Peter Svidler.
The rate of play is 4 minutes per game for each player, plus 2 seconds per move starting from move one.
The prizes are $25,000 for the winner, $15,000 for the runner up, $10,000 for third place and further prizes ranging from $7,250 for fourth to $2,500 each for 11th-14th places and $1,500 each for 15th-18th places. If there are ties in the final standing order, then all respective prizes, excepting the first one, are equally shared between the players who tied.