WIJK AAN ZEE, January 15: Viswanathan Anand found the winning touch even with black as he put on display his best defending abilities and then outplayed the twice Russian champion Alexander Motylev in just 31 moves to join a group of seven players at the top of the table after the second round of the 'A' group of Corus chess tournament here. It put the NIIT sponsored Anand onto a good start in his quest for a sixth Corus title.

Six of the seven games produced results on the second day after just one result on first day.

In group C, Parimarjan Negi drew with Stellan Byrnell and moved into shared lead with three others. They all have 1.5 points from two rounds.

In round three Anand will have white pieces for the first time and will clash with Lev Aronian in third round. In Group C, Negi (2538) had white pieces against Thomas Willemze (2393) and has a good chance to win.

Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan drew the only game as he was attempting to score a full point against Sergei Karjakin of Ukraine to retain sole lead that he held after the first round after beating Loek Van Wely of Holland in the first round.

Top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia also scored emphatic victories against Loek Van Wely and Alexei Shirov of Spain in the 14-player tournament.

Anand really had to pull himself together for the game against Motylev who is making his debut in the 'A' group of this elite event.

Playing black against Motylev, who is making his debut in Corus GM tournament, the Indian ace was up against a dangerous variation of the Sicilian Najdorf. But Anand, who is now just four points behind Topalov in world rankings played a brilliant game.

Motylev while trying to keep his attack going found Anand tough to crack and in end succumbed himself in just 31 moves.

After a quiet first round, all the top GMs went for blood in round two. Apart from Anand, Topalov and Kramnik, other winning were Lev Aronian and Peter Svidler. Magnus Carlsen missed a one-move win and lost against Navara.

Kramnik’s match against Alexei Shirov was a grudge match and in an English game, Shirov allowed a full hour to pass before he decided on a reply to the seventh move. Kramnik exerted steady pressure which led to an endgame where he is probably winning, due to the weakness of b4. Shirov then blundered a piece.

Loek van Wely, who once helped Toplaov in the past lost his second straight game.

The Motylev – Anand game saw the popular line of Najdorf Poisoned Pawn. Anand employed the novelty 14…Qd5! Which was recently recommended by Kasparov in a column. White needed a lot of creative play to use that to advantage and even sacrificed three pawns, but never got compensation as Anand played excellently.

Anand parried Motylev's attack and when the Russian missed a drawing chance, the Indian capitalized on it and won the full point.

Pairings for round 3:
L. van Wely v A. Motylev; S. Karjakin v V. Topalov; A. Shirov v T. Radjabov; S. Tiviakov v V. Kramnik; D. Navara v P. Svidler; R. Ponomariov v M. Carlsen; V. Anand v L. Aronian

Round 2 (January 14, 2007)
Results – Round 2 - Levon beat Ponomariov; Kramnik beat Shirov; Svidler beat Tiviakov; Radjabov drew with Karjakin; Topalov beat Van Wely; Motylev lost to Anand; Carlsen lost to Navara