Anand drew 1-1 with Leko in the eighth round Sunday. Anand stayed well behind leader Kramnik, who beat Loek van Wely in the blindfold game.

Monaco: Viswanathan Anand lost 0-2 to Russian Alexander Morozevich in the seventh round of the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament.

The loss proved costly as the Indian also lost his share of the top spot and slipped to joint fifth in overall standings.

However, despite the defeat, Anand maintained his top position in the rapid section with five points out of a possible seven. Morozevich leads the blindfold on five points, while Anand is joint seventh. As things stand now, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Hungarian Peter Leko share the lead with nine points each in combined standings. Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Evgeny Bareev of Russia are on 8.5.

Anand, Peter Svidler of Russia and Morozevich are flocked together on eight points. Just four more rounds remain in this unique event that features one blindfold and one rapid game in each round.

Up against the French Defence for the second day in succession as white in the blindfold, Anand went for a direct attack against Morozevich.

The middle-game was extremely complicated where Anand went for a piece sacrifice that proved promising as he quickly gained an advantage thanks to a bare black king that found hard to make a living.

Morozevich, with his never-say-die attitude, came up with some tactical moves and upset the rhythm of the Indian.

Anand blundered his chances to remain on top on the 26th move and could not recover. After the dust subsided, Morozevich had cleared his king out of danger. The game lasted 46 moves.

In rapid, Morozevich took a safer approach going for the Sicilian Rossolimo with white, while it proved to be not Anand’s day.