Anand placed joint second

LINARES, March 3: Indian Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand and his rival Alexy Shirov of Russia agreed to a draw which puts Anand at joint seco...

LINARES, March 3: Indian Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand and his rival Alexy Shirov of Russia agreed to a draw which puts Anand at joint second with slender half point behind the leader Shirov as all the other three games today ended in a draw at the end of the eighth round of the Linares Grandmasters chess tournament here.

Alexy Shirov maintained his lead with 4.5 points as he split points with Anand in the seventh game.

In the game between Anand and Shirov, the rivals hoped for one to err badly but as both were unrelenting, Shirov offered a draw and Anand accepted it in 44 moves.

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Shirov, who has not lost a game after his first-round defeat by Anand, played the Ruy Lopez Archangelsk, the same variation that he played against Kasparov for a swift draw.

Earlier. However, Anand moved from what Kasparov played on move 17 but Shirov, who took some time to reply, answered well. The rivals then visualised that there was no scope for a result, except if either of them committed a blunder.

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