Anand Plays Third Straight Draw
Top seed Viswanathan Anand drew his third straight game when he repeated the position and took a third round draw against former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the MTel Masters Chess Tournament being played at Hotel Grand Sofia in Bulgaria on Saturday.
In the most sensational result of the event, Michael Adams of England shocked world classical champion Vladimir Kramnik in 41 moves with the white pieces to wrest the sole lead. Adams leads with two points from three games while Anand, Judit Polgar, Veselin Topalov and Kramnik are in joint second place with 1.5 points. In the last place in Ponomariov with one point.
Having played the Petroff's defence with the black pieces in the previous round, Anand was pitted against the same opening but had the white side against Ponomariov. The Indian sacrificed a pawn and established a formidable pawn centre. In the rooks and bishops ending neither side had the breakthrough and they drew by repetition of moves on the 33rd turn.
Kramnik ventured into risky play and paid for that by losing a rook and two minor pieces for the queen of Adams. Adams played well and pounced on Kramnik's mistake on the 34th move to win. Topalov brough life into a slow game with a knight sacrifice but Polgar defended the ending to draw with accurate play. Seven rounds are still to be played in this six-player double round robin super category 20 tournament.
The results (third round): Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 1.5 drew Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 1, Judit Polgar (Hun) 1.5 drew Veselin Topalov (Bul) 1.5, Michael Adams (Eng) 2 bt. Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) 1.5.
White: Viswanathan Anand - Black: Ruslan Ponomariov, round three, Petroff's defence, C42: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.0-0 Be7 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 0-0 10.Nc3 Be6 11.Ne5 Bd6 12.a3 Bxe5 13.axb4 Bf6 14.Nxe4 dxe4 15.Be3 c6 16.Qd2 Qd6 17.Rfd1 Rfd8 18.b5 cxb5 19.d5 Bd7 20.c5 Qe7 21.Ra3 Bc6 22.d6 Qe5 23.b4 Qb2 24.Qxb2 Bxb2 25.Ra5 a6 26.Rb1 Be5 27.f4 exf3 28.Bxf3 Rac8 29.Ra3 f6 30.Bg4 Bd7 31.Bf3 Bc6 32.Bg4 Bd7 33.Bf3 Bc6 Drawn.