London: A quick chat with former tennis star Boris Becker before the start of the game on Sunday had the Indian ace and reigning World Champion and NIIT Mind Champion  Viswanathan Anand  starting on a good note against Michael Adams in the first round of the London Chess Classic 2011 but the game petered into a draw after 49 moves.

Generally Round one of most Round Robin tournaments are sedate, solid and sometimes dull affairs with players preferring to warm up but on Saturday night , the encounters were interesting and enthralling though just one decisive result was produced by Magnus Carlsen who trounced David Howell.

The event has odd number of entries and hence each player will recieive a bye in every round. The NIIT Mind Champion has a bye in the second round and will assist the commentary team on Sunday.

Carlsen is thus leading the nine player event with 3 points while Anand,Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Adams, Luke McShane and Hikaru Nakamura have logged one point each. Nigel Short had a bye in the first round.

Anand opted for the Sicilian Najdorf against Adams and the game was more or less a replica of the variation they played last year. The Englishman after the game however commented “ Vishy was better at some point” . However the pieces kept getting exchanged there- after at quick intervals and the players reached an almost identical appearing position where each had four pawns and queen.

Anand secured the draw by perpetual checks with his queen.Carlsen scored in 40 moves of a Spanish opening while Luke Mcshane did creditably well to draw against Levon Aronian of Armenia after the latter got a very promising looking position in a Slav game. Kramnik and Nakamura also drew after 45 moves of a Catalan opening.