Anand draws with Smeets; Carlsen joins Kramnik in lead

Published Sat, Jan 30 10 05:23 PM

From Our Chess Correspondent Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands), Jan 30 (PTI) After a lucky win in the previous round, world champion Viswanathan Anand was back to splitting points as he played out a quick draw against Dutch Jan Smeets in the 11th round of the Corus Chess Tournament here. Anand took his tally to six points out of a possible 11 and apart from the draws, the Indian was lucky to post a victory against Alexei Shirov of Spain in the 10th round of the elite group ''A''. With just two rounds to come in this category-19 event, Anand''s chances of a comeback are bleak unless he comes up with a winning performance against Russian Vladimir Kramnik in the penultimate round. Kramnik, meanwhile, was joined in the lead by world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway who put it across Leinier Dominguez of Cuba. Both Kramnik and Carlsen now have 7.5 points and they are now a half point ahead of nearest rival Alexei Shirov of Spain. Anand shares the fourth spot along with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, defending champion Sergei Karjakin of Russia and Hikaru Nakamura of United States while Dominguez and Hungarian Peter Leko share the eighth spot with 5.5 points each. Anand did almost nothing with black pieces as Smeets was quite happy to get a half point against the World champion even though the latter had white pieces. The players split the point after just 15 moves.

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