Viswanathan Anand

Morelia (Mexico): Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in Round VI of the Morelia-Linares chess meet Saturday.

The lead positions remained unchanged at the fag end of the Morelia leg of the tournament as the day failed to produce a single decisive game out of a possible four.

In the other games, Magnus Carlsen took a quick draw with Peter Leko of Hungary, Levon Aronian signed peace with top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and the Russian duel between Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler had the same fate.

With only one round remaining in this leg, the event shifts to Linares in Spain. Carlsen remained in sole lead on four points, while Anand and Aronian remained half a point behind.

Leko, Ivanchuk and Svidler are also in close pursuit on three points, while Topalov and Morozevich share the last spot on two points apiece.

Anand’s game was the longest of the day, lasting 32 moves and Ivanchuk used too much time on his clock yet again. Playing the white side of a Sicilian Najdorf, Anand went for a relatively new idea in the opening but could not gain advantage as Ivanchuk came up with precise manoeuvres.

In the middle game, Ivanchuk sank into his usual deep thinking and Anand’s massive lead on the clock appeared to be the best hope for excitement on this otherwise dull day.

But as it turned out, Anand blitzed in Ivanchuk’s time trouble and at one point it looked as though the Ukrainian could have been better with a pawn capture. However, there was quick liquidation leading the game to level territories where the peace agreement was a just result.

Carlsen played against Leko’s Slav Defence and the Anti-Meran Variation only led to a dynamically balanced middle game when the players just decided to draw in just 20 moves.

This was however, not the shortest game of the day as Morozevich-Svidler pipped it by four moves. The English Opening by Morozevich met with an equalising response from Svidler and the game was drawn in just 16 moves.