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Anand draws with Kramnik at the Tal Memorial

By The Assam Tribune

MOSCOW, Nov 21 (PTI): World champion Viswanathan Anand played out another insipid draw with former challenger Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the fifth round of Tal Memorial International chess tournament now underway here.

With his fifth draw on the trot, Anand remained on a 50 percent score in the strongest tournament of the year and remained on the joint fifth spot.

For the second day running, all the games ended in draws but they were not devoid of action. Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine played out a draw with world No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway while American Hikaru Nakamura achieved the same result against Armenian Levon Aronian.

The day�s most interesting battle between Russians Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler also reached the parity after wild complications while in the other game of the Boris Gelfand of Israel split the point with Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi.

The lead positions remained unchanged and Aronian, Carlsen, Karjakin and Nepomniachtchi remained at the helm with 3 points in their kitty. Anand, Ivanchuk and Svidler share the fifth spot� half a point behind while Kramnik and Nakamura are following on their heels with two points apiece.

Gelfand remained at the bottom of the tables on 1.5 points with four rounds still to come in the super-tournament.

Anand opened with the queen pawn and faced the Queen�s gambit declined from Kramnik. The latter managed to almost equalize out of the opening without too many difficulties.

Anand decided in the middle game that he didn�t have much to look upto and took the safer route that involved exchange of pieces. The players arrived at an opposite colored bishop endgame and the position petered out to a draw in quick time.

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