MAINZ, GERMANY: Viswanathan Anand fought back hard but Armenian Levona Aronian proved to be too good, beating the Indian Grandmaster in tiebreaker in a thrilling final to clinch the Chess 960 World Championships.

Playing this variant of the game for the first time where the position of the pieces at the start is set randomly for each game, Anand fought from behind to level the scores 2-2 after the rapid games. Aronian, however, produced a scintillating performance in the shoot-out to score 1.5-0.5 to lift the title here. In the playoff for third place, Etienne Bacrot of France who mauled Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan 3-1.

Anand lost the first game of the four game matches after spoiling a promising position against Aronian who played with white. After a lot of manoeuvring the players arrived at a chess-like position where Anand had little to worry about.

However, for once, the Indian ace was under pressure on the clock which eventually had a telling effect. After drawing the next two games Anand took the match to tiebreaker that Aronian won eventually. "I am happy to retain my title for the second time.

It was a tough match and Anand played well but he committed many mistakes in the first game and lost," Aronian said. It will be time for some normal chess again as Anand will start his campaign for the 10th overall title in Chess Classics Rapid.

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