World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Israeli Boris Gelfand to improve to the joint third spot after the ninth round of the Corus International chess tournament here.The Indian ace did not have any trouble in holding Gelfand with black, but in a major turnaround, Hungarian Peter Leko defeated overnight sole leader Magnus Carlsen of Norway to leave the field wide open.With Russian Vladimir Kramnik bowing to some fine attacking display by Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Levon Aronian of Armenia joined Carlsen in the lead on 5.5 points. Anand inched himself up to joint third spot on 5 points and giving him company are Kramnik, Teinour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and Michael Adams of England. Just four rounds remain in the category-20 tournament.In the Group B, being played simultaneously, the Indian Grandmasters’ duel between Koneru Humpy and P Harikrishna ended in a draw without much ado. Playing white, Humpy played it safe in the Neo-Grunfeld.The draw helped Harikrishna retain his joint fourth spot on 5 points as Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia retained sole lead after drawing with Nigel Short of England.With Movsesian on 6.5 points, the second place in this section is held by Etienne Bacrot of France on 6 while Short is clear third another half point adrift.Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi was held to a draw by Mark van der Werf of Holland in Group C. Playing white, the Dutchman played a closed position wherein the Indian did not get many chances. Fabiano Caruana of Italy strengthened his position at the top of the table in this section defeating John van der Wiel of Holland. The Italian teenager took his tally to 7 points out of a possible 9 and remained a half point clear of Dutch GM Dmitry Reinderman.Negi is joint third along with Friso Nijboer of Holland on 5.5 points.Anand repeated the moves that he last played against Gelfand in the World championship match tournament. The Israeli had a new idea but it did not yield much after Anand’s spectacular 20th move. Gelfand realised in quick time that it was futile to try something and was in fact proud of the correct defence that he produced thereafter.Leko faced the Breyer variation in the Ruy Lopez against Carlsen who played black. The Hungarian could have won a pawn with excellent chances in the middle game that ensued but instead went for a wild continuation that resulted in Carlsen gaining two knights for a rook and a strong passed white pawn.
