Monaco: Defending champion Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark in the blindfold game of the ninth round of Amber Rapid and Blindfold chess tournament now in progress here.

Russian Alexander Morozevich surged ahead yet again with another splendid victory, accounting for Hungarian Peter Leko and yet again stretched his lead to a full point in the overall standings of the event, taking his personal tally to a whopping 12 points out of a possible 17 games played so far in the event.

Anand remained close to Morozevich on 11 points, but slipped further against the Russian as far as the blindfold is concerned as the Indian ace could only move to 5 points in this section compared to Morozevich’s 7.5 points here.

With two points lead to back him in this section, the Russian is almost assured of the top prize in the blindfold section of this tournament, in which there is one blindfold and one rapid game in each round.

Having worked with Nielsen for quite sometime before the last World Championship, Anand risked little against the Dane and played it safe with the black pieces. For the record, it was a Queen’s Indian defense game that lasted just 20 moves.

Morozevich yet again showed his great expertise in the blindfold game in getting a full point against Leko with black pieces. The Russian employed Sicilian Paulsen to record a fine victory in 42 moves.