Anand can’t win title outright

Vishwanathan Anand squandered a winning position and had to be content with a draw against Russian Grandmaster Evgeny Alekseev in the sixth and penultimate round of the Sparkassen chess

Vishwanathan Anand squandered a winning position and had to be content with a draw against Russian Grandmaster Evgeny Alekseev in the sixth and penultimate round of the Sparkassen chess meet here.

The draw ended Anand’s chances of winning the tournament outright. The best he can hope for now is a share of first place, provided world champ Vladimir Kramnik loses his last round game to Alekseev.

Kramnik surged ahead to a full point lead by beating Germany’s Arkadij Naiditsch. Kramnik has 4.5 points from six games, one more than Anand, Alekseev and Leko. Irrespective of the last round results, Kramnik is assured of at least shared first place.

Hungarian Grandmaster Peter Leko registered his first victory in the tournament by beating Israel’s Boris Gelfand to move into second place. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan drew with Norway’s Magnus Carlsen .

Keeps ranking lead

New Delhi: Viswanathan Anand has strengthened his position at the top with a whopping 23-point lead against world champion Vladimir Kramnik in the latest FIDE rankings issued by the International Chess Federation. The Indian ace, who climbed the top of the ranking charts for the first time in April after upstaging Bulgarian Veseline Topalov, has added six points to be at ELO 2792 in the quarterly updated list.