Monaco: Viswanathan Anand made an indifferent start to his campaign at the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament, losing to Russian Alexander Morozevich in the first round here.

The five-time champion lost the blindfold game in 48 moves and drew the rapid game in 36 moves.

Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Levon Aronian of Armenia emerged early leaders. Ivanchuk defeated Dutchman Loek van Wely in both blindfold and rapid, Aronian beat Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain in both variants. World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Morozevich are right behind the two leaders on 1.5 points. Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Peter Svidler of Russia, Peter Leko of Hungary and Boris Gelfand of Israel are on one point.

Kramnik beat Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan in the blindfold and drew the rapid.

Anand is joint ninth on a half point. (PTI)