Anand slips to joint 5th after yet another draw
Viswanathan Anand`s quest for an elusive win continued unabated as the Indian split points with Hungarian Peter Leko for his fifth draw on the trot in the ongoing Corus Chess tournament here.
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Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): Viswanathan
Anand`s quest for an elusive win continued unabated as the
Indian split points with Hungarian Peter Leko for his fifth
draw on the trot in the ongoing Corus Chess tournament here.
Left Anand with 2.5 points and joint fifth in the table,
the Indian ace would have to come up with vastly improved show
in the subsequent rounds if he is to bridge the widening gap
between him and Group A leader Alexei Shirov (5) who had won
all five games so far.
Among other Indians, Parimarjan Negi got his first full
point at the expense of American Varuzhan Akobian in Group
`B`, while P Harikrishna settled for a draw but they were
outshone by Grandmaster Anish Giri, who continued his dream
run and jumped in to sole lead following another impressive
victory.
In Group A, Shirov now enjoys a handsome 1.5 points lead
over nearest rivals Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Vassily Ivanchuk
of Ukraine and Hikaru Nakamura of United States.
Russian Vladimir Kramnik scored his first victory of the
year to move to sole fourth spot on three points while Anand
shares the fifth spot with defending champion Sergey Karjakin
of Russia and Leinier Dominguez of Cuba. The closed Ruy Lopez gave Anand an easy equality after an
early trade of queens against Leko. The ensuing endgame had
only minuscule problems for five-time winner Anand and he
neutralised white`s initiative in quick to time to sign peace
in just 28 moves.
In the `B`, group there was some good news from Indian
perspective as Parimarjan Negi won a nice game against
Varuzhan Akobian of United States.
Playing the black side of a Grunfeld defense, Negi caused
a lot of practical problems for Akobian in one of the popular
variations. Akobian used a lot of time on his clock after a
stunning piece sacrifice by Negi in the middle game and the
resulting position was tough to defend. The game lasted 47
moves.
Harikrishna played a safe draw as black against Wesley So
of Philippines but Anish Giri tamed Emil Sutovsky of Israel to
increase his tally to four.
Elsewhere, Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta wasted a better
endgame to draw with Benjamin Bok of Holland in the `C` group.
PTI
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