Viswanathan Anand roared back into top form demolishing Spaniard Paco Vallejo for a perfect 2-0 score in the third round of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament at the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel in Monaco, France. Anand now has four points from three rounds from a maximum possible of six and has moved into the joint third position.

The field is led by Evegeny Bareev and Vladimir Kramnik, who are just half a point ahead of Anand, Peter Svidler and Peter Leko.

In an interesting day's play, Anand was one of the three players to emerge with a perfect score for the round. The other players were Evegeny Bareev and Vassily Ivanchuk. Bareev beat Loek Van Wely, while Ivanchuk outclassed Boris Gelfand in both games.

Defending champion Anand up against Paco Vallejo looked eager to move up the standings with a good score in round 3.

In the Blindfold, Anand was with white pieces. The game was in the Sicilian Najdorf and followed the lines of Vallejo's game with Leko at Linares. But Anand came up with a novelty on the 11th move and soon the Indian ace moved into a strong position. With every move Anand became more dominating, and he then came up with a queen sacrifice that crowned his final efforts in 31 moves.

In the Rapid, there was more misery for Paco Vallejo. The Spaniard with white miscalculated his position and made a mistake. Anand pounced on it and soon became the dominant force yet again in the Sicilian Scheveningen. Though the game lingered for a while, Anand took it for his second win of the day in 69 moves.

The much-awaited match in round three was the clash between Kramnik and Leko, the two leaders after first two rounds. Though both their games ended in draws, they were rather well fought and interesting. The Blindfold was a tough struggle with Kramnik having white in a Sicilian Sveshnikov. He looked like getting into a winning position but then eased off allowing Leko to complicate and get away with a draw.

In the second game, it was a complicated but interesting tussle in another Sicilian Rossolimo. Kramnik with black was a pawn down but had enough compensation. Considering Leko's form over the past year, Kramnik would have been happy with the result.

Peter Svidler handed Topalov a defeat in Blindfold and then drew their Rapid game, Vassily Ivanchuk thrashed Boris Gelfand in both Blindfold and Rapid. Gelfand has now lost each of his six games.

Anand, sponsored by Indian Information Technology giant, NIIT, is due to meet Dutchman Van Wely in the fourth round on Tuesday night. Anand will have black pieces in the Blindfold game and white in Rapid and another good result could see Anand back on the track to defend his title.

Results of Round 3(Blindfold): Van Wely lost to Bareev; Anand beat Vallejo; Svidler beat Topalov; Morozevich beat Shirov; Kramnik drew with Leko; Ivanchuk beat Gelfand.

Results of Round 3 (Rapid): Bareev beat Van Wely; Vallejo lost to Anand; Topalov drew with Svidler; Shirov beat Morozevich; Leko drew with Kramnik; Gelfand lost to Ivanchuk.

Pairings for Round 4: Shirov-Ivanchuk; Leko-Gelfand; Morozevich-Kramnik; Bareev-Topalov; Vallejo-Svidler; Van Wely-Anand.

Combined Standings (after round 3): 1. Bareev and Kramnik 4.5; 3. Leko, Svidler and Anand 4.0 each; 6. Morozevich and Shirov 3.5; 8. Topalov, Van Wely and Ivanchuk 2.5; 11. Vallejo 0.5; 12. Gelfand 0.