Wijk Aan Zee: Defending champion Viswanathan Anand assured himself of at least a share in the top place of the Corus Chess Tournament with a quick draw against GM Ivan Sokolov of Netherlands in the 13th and final round on Sunday.

Not wanting to take any risk after a previous round debacle against GM Veselin Topolov of Bulgaria, Anand settled for a draw in just 14 moves with white pieces. He is well aware that his main contemporaries — GM Michael Adams of England and GM Peter Leko of Hungary — had a daunting task on hand as they had to win with black pieces to catch up with him.

As it turned out, Adams failed to score the required full point against a solid show by Russian Peter Svidler and signed the peace treaty in 26 moves.

The other contender for the top berth, Leko, was under tremendous pressure to save the tie against top seed Vladimir Kramnik at the time of writing the report.

Anand finished with an overall tally of 8.5 points like last year, and with Leko looking unlikely to win from a hopeless position against Kramnik, the Indian stalwart is virtually assured of a back-to-back title in this traditional tournament.

Anand won five games, lost one and drew the remaining seven for his plus four score in the event. The loss to Topalov was especially painful as it ended Anand’s undefeated run in this tournament for the last six years.