Corus chess: Anand draws again, Abhijeet wins 11th round

WIJK AAN ZEE - Viswanathan Anand, one of the only two players in the field not to have suffered a loss, played his tenth draw in 11 rounds at the Corus Grandmasters chess tournament.

Anand, whose sole win came against Alexei Shirov, played a quick 15-move draw against Jan Smeets of the Netherlands here Friday. Anand allowed a repetition of position against tail-ender Smeets after just 15 moves of a Sicilian Scheveningen. Anand now has six points and is placed tied fourth with three others, Hikaru Nakamura, Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin.

Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen joined Vladimir Kramnik in the lead with two rounds to go. Carlsen beat Leinier Dominguez Perez in a Gruenfeld where time trouble played a part in the Cuban’s loss.

The heavyweight clash of the day was between Alexei Shirov and Kramnik. Having lost the lead, Shirov could have regained it with a win. He certainly set a lot of problems but a calm defence from Kramnik seemed to just about hold in all lines.

In Group B, Parimarjan Negi drew with the experienced Emil Sutovsky in 77 moves of a Caro-Kann game and is now placed sixth with six points. Pentala Harikrishna played a 59-move draw with Ni Hua in a Slav defence. Anish Giri leads the group with eight points.

In Group C, Abhijeet Gupta regained his winning touch after two successive losses. Gupta beat Nils Grandelius in 50 moves of a Gruenfeld where the Indian had black pieces. Gupta is fourth with 6.5 points, while the leader is still Li Chao who has sevens in 11 rounds.

However, Soumya Swaminathan lost to Benjamin Bok in 40 moves of a Sicilian Najdorf. Soumya three points and is placed 13th.