Anand prefers the waiting game

‘‘He is a much weaker opponent (than Leko) but I wasexhausted after the tiebreakers,’’ said Khalifman.

Anand met Macieja in Sicilian Taimanov. The Pole seemed to have worked out a Kingside attack and looked set for executing it with his rook posted in the King-knight file. Anand evaded the expected line, avoided castling and took his King out to the seventh rank.

By move 26, after two and half hours, the draw was agreed upon. ‘‘Basically, he missed one move. It was quite a double-edged board,’’ said Anand. ‘‘I lost a tempo on move 20 but the position was more or less equal. Any endgame is much better for me but things can get out of control with one move.’’

Anand admitted his King was ‘misplaced’ but he was not too unhappy about the draw. Asked whether he liked the format which knocked-out several seeds, Anand said: ‘‘The format is quite interesting, there is always going to be some casualty.’’

Alexie Dreev of Russia was the lone winner in the open section. He demolished Veselin Topalov’s Slav Defence in 25 moves. Topalov lost a pawn on the 19th move and faced further loss of material.

Alexander Morozevich of Russia and Vladislav Tkachiev played an interesting 30-move draw in which black lost a piece for three pawns.

In the women’s section, world champion Xie Jun of China struck with white against Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine in 40 moves of French Defence.

Kovalevskaya of Russia scored a 26-move win over Z Peng of Netherlands also in French defence.

Results
Round IV, Game I
Open: Macieja (Pol) drew Anand; Leitao drew Khalifman (Rus); Svidler (Rus) drew Adams (Eng); Dreev (Rus) bt Topalov (Bul); Morozevich (Rus) drew Tkachiev (Fra); Ehlvest (Est) drew Grischuk (Rus); Shirov (Spain) drew Gelfand (Isr); Bareev (Rus) drew Gulko (USA).
Women (QF): Xie Jun (Chn) bt N Zhukova (Ukr); Kovalevskaya (Rus) bt Z Peng (Ned); Maric (Yug) drew Skripchenko (Mda); Qin (Chn) drewPeptan (Rom).