Anand, Negi held as all five Indians draw their games

WIJK AAN ZEE - Five-time Corus champion and the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Nigel Short in the second round of the 72nd Corus Grandmasters Chess tournament.

It brought Anands tally to one point from two games here Sunday, while Alexei Shirov earned his second straight win, this time over Italian Fabiano Caruana.

All five Indians drew their second rounds games. None of the Indians have registered a win so far.

There were three decisive games, with Hikaru Nakamura of US beating Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands and Magnus Carlsen, the World No.1 scoring a full point over another local player Jan Smeets. Behind Shirovs two points, Nakamura and Carlsen have 1.5 points each. Anand is tied for fourth at one with six others.

In group B, both Indians Parimarjan Negi and Pentala Harikrishna drew their respective games. Negi was held to a draw in 41 moves of a Sicilian-Paulsen game by Slovenian Anna Muzychuk, the only woman in the group. Hari drew with David Howell in 51 moves from a Gruenfeld in which the Indian had white. Negi has one point from two games and Hari has half a point.

GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands leads with two points in two games and his games were adjudged best in his category on both days.

In group C, Abhijit Gupta drew with Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine while Sowmya Swaminathan drew with Sjoerd Plukkel of Netherlands. Abhijit has one point and Sowmya has half a point. Ray Robson, who beat Sowmya in first round leads with two points.

Short playing black for the second successive game, met World Champion Anand. In a Queens Gambit declined, they headed towards a position in a Ragozin where black has a couple of extra pawns but has great problems hanging on to the material and getting developed.

Short was forced to decide how he was to return the material and end up with a playable position at the end. The double rook ending at the end still held some perils but Short found his way through to the draw in the end.

Grandmaster Alexei Shirov of Spain emerged as the sole leader after his victory over last year’s Group ‘B’ winner Fabiano Caruana of Italy.