Anand

Morelia (Mexico): Viswanathan Anand won an engrossing game against Norwegian Magnus Carlsen to jump into a share of the lead with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine after the end of the third round of the Morelia-Linares chess tournament.

The victory was especially sweet for Anand as it came with black pieces. After two draws in the first two games, the Indian took his tally to 2 points out of a possible three and is expected to fire on all cylinders against Russian Alexander Morozevich in the next round.

Following the course of the first two days, there was only one decisive game in the third round as well as the other three duels ended in draws in contrasting fashion.

Top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria could do little against Peter Leko of Hungary, Ivanchuk had little to worry against Peter Svidler of Russia, while defending champion Levon Aronian of Armenia could not find as many holes as he might have liked in a wild game against Morozevich.

As things stand, Anand and Ivanchuk have two points apiece and Leko, Svidler, Aronian and Carlsen follow them a half point behind. Topalov and Morozevich are sharing the last spot in the category-20 event with 11 rounds still remaining.

Anand was in his elements against Carlsen who had been quite impressive thus far. The Indian ace restored faith in the Semi Slav Defence with his black pieces and equalised quite easily after Carlsen went for a harmless variation.

The game took a decisive turn after the trade of queens on the 17th move as Anand got a miniscule advantage that remained to be nurtured.

It was here that Anand came out with his best technique, slowly paralysing white’s forces and forcing Carlsen to part with one pawn soon after the rook and an opposite colour bishop endgame was reached. The complexities remained, but Anand made it all look too simple once on top. The game lasted 40 moves.

Aronian-Morozevich was clearly the pick of the day, apart from Anand’s , as both fought out a tactical battle arising out of a queen’s gambit declined.

Playing black, Aronian got two dangerous looking passed pawns on the queen after the dust subsided but Morozevich was quite on target with his counter active measures.

Aronian eventually had to part with a piece but the position was already a draw.

Leko played the Queen’s Indian Defence against Topalov and it was quite a dull affair as the former got a balanced endgame and exchanged pieces to net a drawn opposite colour bishops endgame.

Topalov continued for a while but soon realised the fortress by Leko was impregnable. Peace was signed in 39 moves. (PTI)