Indiatimes, India
March 8 2007
Anand draws with Aronian, inches closer towards title
PTI
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LINARES (Spain), Mar 8: Title contender Viswanathan Anand shunned
risks and played out a safe draw with defending champion Levon
Aronian of Armenia to retain his slender half point lead after the
12th round of the Morelia-Linares Chess tournament underway here.
With just two rounds to go in the category-20 event, the Indian ace
took his tally to 7.5 points out of a possible 12 and will now meet
Hungarian Peter Leko and Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the last two
rounds.
On the other hand, 16-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway continued
with his impressive run and remained on the heels of Anand after
splitting point with top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. Carlsen
took his tally to an impressive seven points and remained in sole
second spot.
The other two games of the day ended decisively with Russian Peter
Svidler accounting for an out-of-sort Leko and Ivanchuk going down
rather tamely against another Russia Alexander Morozevich.
As things stand, Svidler moved to sole third spot after the victory
with 6.5 points and maintained the tag of being the only unbeaten
player in the tournament while Aronian was pushed to fourth spot on
six points. Topalov, Ivanchuk and Morozevich share the fifth spot
having 5.5 points apiece while Leko, after his dismal show, is now
firmly in the cellar on 4.5 points.
In the remaining two rounds, Anand’s main contender will be Carlsen
only as the Norwegian boy-wonder has to meet Svidler and Leko in
final outings here.
Svidler is hard to put down in current form while against Leko and
Carlsen will play with black pieces in the tie. In all likelihood,
one point from the remaining two games should be enough for Anand to
grab the title.
Today is the final rest day of the marathon event and the battle
resumes on Friday for the final leg now.
Anand played out a theoretically equal Anti Marshall to draw with
Aronian who played black. The routine opening moves were blitzed out
in quick time and the players signed peace in just 23 moves in this
shortest game of the day.
Svidler was the pick of day as he put an end to his all-draws with an
emphatic victory over Leko who suffered his third loss in the event.
The Sicilian Najdorf by the Russian came good as black as Leko went
haywire in the middle game to allow a dangerous attack.
Svidler wrapped the issue in just 36 moves.
Morozevich also won with black against Ivanchuk from a Scotch opening
game. The age-old variation opted by Ivanchuk allowed enough counter
play for Morozevich to get the complexities he was looking for and
the ensuing tactical manoeuvres ensured his bounce back from the last
spot.
Carlsen drew with Topalov from a Symmetrical English opening. Playing
white Topalov could not get much out of the opening against his well
prepared opponent and it took just 25 moves for both to decide to
split the point.
Parings, Round 13: Aronian v Ivanchuk; Carlsen v Svidler; Morozevich
v Topalov; Anand v Leko.