Nanjing: World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Norway’s Magnus Carlsen to remain in joint second position after the end of the second round of Pearl Spring Chess tournament here.

Anand, who had drawn his first round encounter with Wang Yue of China, played out his second draw on the trot against Carlsen in less than a week’s days time in the same opening that the Norwegian had played in the recent Bilbao Final Masters.

The Indian inched himself up to one point from his two outing and the lead positions remained unchanged as the other two games of this six-players double round robin tournament also ended in draws.

As a result of the draws melee, Carlsen remained in sole lead on 1.5 points and he is now followed by Anand, Wang Yue, Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan and former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, who all have one point.

Etienne Bacrot of France stands last with eight rounds still to come in the 250000 Euros prize money tournament.

Anand yet again faced the Breyer variation in the Ruy Lopez but Carlsen was the first to deviate from their earlier game at Bilbao.

The middle game had typical features of the opening and even though Anand exerted pressure with his slightly better position it was never enough to force matters.

According to the experts, this encounter was not as interesting as the previous one as both Anand and Carlsen had obtained chances in the earlier match.

As it happened in the game, Carlsen successfully neutralised white’s initiative with some timely exchanges and manoeuvre and led the game to a drawn rook and opposite colour bishop endgame.

Peace was signed in 44 moves.

Meanwhile, Etienne Bacrot’s quest for a victory did not materialise, thanks to a gutsy performance from Topalov, who played the black side of a NImzo Indian defence.