Viswanathan Anand had a miraculous escape as he came back from the jaws of defeat a couple of times before taking a draw with arch rival Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the second round of the World Chess Championship here. After a brilliant first round victory over Hungarian Judit Polgar the Indian ace was almost out of sort in the final stages of the game as he first blew away an easy draw, came back, blundered again and eventually clawed back once more to salvage an important half point. With draws being the order of the day, Topalov and Anand remained in joint lead after the second round having 1.5 points apiece. With 12 rounds still remaining in the 8-players double round robin event, defending champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan, Russain duo of Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich and Brit Michael Adams are joint third in the standings on a 50 per cent score while Hungarians Peter Leko and Judit Polgar are currently at the bottom of the tables with just a half point from their two games. In the recent past Topalov has been giving Anand a run for his money and the second round was almost another indication of that. However, this time it was only Anand’s form that deserted him once he seeming wriggled out of his difficulties with the black pieces after the two stalwarts continued their discussions in the Queen’s Indian defence. Topalov, who had scored a remarkable victory over Anand in the same opening just a few months back during the MTEL Masters at Sofia, could not quite get the similar rhythm this time around as Anand came out better prepared and apparantly had only a slightly inferior position after the middle game surfaced. Disaster first struck Anand on move 46 when he missed out on a simple queen manoeuvre that led to a clearly won endgame for Topalov.
