Five times world champion Anand, who turned 44 yesterday, did well to beat McShane who is known as the world's strongest amateur. Anand then followed it up with an easy draw against Adams to share the lead with the latter.
With four rounds still to come in the prelims, Anand and Adams have an identical four points apiece from two games under the soccer-like scoring system in place here.
With 16 players taking part this year, the Classic is divided into four groups and the top two from each group will reach the knockout stage after a double round robin.
Having made a good start, Anand is almost sure to find himself in the knockout stage reserved for top two finishers in each group.
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Anand started the day as black against McShane and opted for the Caro Kann defense. McShane, agile and innovative as ever, came up with a fine pawn sacrifice in the early middle game putting Anand in a spot of bother and won a rook for a minor piece and pawn.
In the second game, Anand could not do much as white against Admas out of a Catalan opening. The pieces got traded at regular intervals and the peace was signed after 40 moves.
The other three groups saw emergence of clear leaders on day one although it was a pretty tense day.
Russian Vladimir Kramnik was very lucky to score over compatriot Peter Svidler in the first round of the 'B' group and then steamrolled over wild card entrant Jonathan Rowson of England to maintain a clean slate.