Anand beat Bruzon in 41 moves

Wijk Aan Zee (the Netherlands): Viswanathan Anand scored his third straight victory outplaying Grandmaster Lazaro Bruzon of Cuba in the seventh round of the Corus chess tournament here.

With the fantastic positional victory, Anand elevated himself to the top pack and is now on 4.5 points from seven games in this category-19 event being played under classical time control.

Anand shares lead with Grandmasters Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Michael Adams of England and Peter Leko of Hungary.

It was Anand?s day yet again as he crashed through the defences of his young and relatively inexperienced rival in quick time.

Playing the black side of a structure akin to the Catalan opening, Anand first secured a level position and then slowly outwitted Bruzon to win a pawn in the middle game.

Once on top Anand gave no chance at all and won the game in just 41 moves. Four time winner here, the Indian ace is now a firm contender to claim the title third time in a row.

In another seventh round game, former Russian champion Peter Svidler downed Loek Van Wely of Netherlands in a one-sided contest.

Svidler, who was yet to win a game here until Saturday comprehensively outclassed Van Wely in all departments of the game.

It was a closed Sicilian opening where Svidler, probably tired of his failures here, went for the kill quickly and Van Wely had no clue as to what hit him. The Russian won in just 20 moves after ripping apart Wely?s king side.

Former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov settled for truce with Vladimir Kramnik but not after an intense struggle.

Playing black, Kramnik was subjected to an all-out onslaught by his opponent but careful display ensured that he remained in the game till the end.

Ponomariov first sacrificed a rook and then recovered a piece with fantastic compensation but Kramnik just in time got the perpetual checks to force sharing of the point. The game lasted 45 moves.

English Michael Adams and Peter Leko signed truce after 41 moves of a Ruy Lopez while Topalov and Russian Alexander Morozevich achieved the same result after 40 moves.