Khanty Mansiysk: Grandmaster and six-time Russian champion Peter Svidler got off to a flier in the final of the World Chess Cup with a hard-hitting victory against compatriot Alexander Grischuk with black pieces in the first game on Friday.
Svidler, who has not lost a single game in the World Cup so far, was at his defending best in tackling a flurry of attack by white forces and romped home with a one-point lead with three games still to come in the final.
The other contest of the day for third-place play-off ended in a draw between Ukrainians Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov.
Svidler and Grischuk are fighting for their maiden World Cup title and the former has shown terrific form coming in to the final. Recently, Svidler came off a lean patch winning the Russian Championship for the sixth time, ahead of more fancied Vladimir Kramnik.
Apart from being an exponent of the Grunfeld opening as black, Svidler is also known for his knowledge of the Sicilian Kann and that's what he chose against an aggressive Grischuk.
It is common knowledge that the two finalists are good friends and know each other well. Svidler, in fact, was Grischuk's second during the last candidates' match and was of great assistance as Grischuk lost narrowly to Israeli GM Boris Gelfand in the finals.
The choice of the opening proved crucial as once Grischuk realised he had little to hope for an advantage, he went berserk. The usually-attacking Russian has had his share of success recently, but coming in to the finals he lost two games and now this one makes it his third loss.
Grischuk chose for a piece sacrifice in the middle game that netted him three pawns and an optical attack. Svidler quickly seized the initiative with awesome ease by manoeuvring his knight quite well and when Grischuk had to part with a rook for a knight, it was already almost over. Svidler wrapped it up in just 30 moves.
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