Tregubov holds Anand; Gelfand on course

Tkachiev, who plays Anand tomorrow, said “My chances of qualifying are difficult, with white or black, red or green. I don’t estimate my chances very high.” Gelfand has and easy game against bottom-placed Tissir in the last round.

Anand faced the Sicilian Defence from Trgubov, who has a rating of 2620. Once the Quens got exchanged after the 11th move and the position got simplified to a rooks, bishops and knight versus rooks, bishop and knights ending, the draw was the fair result.

Group A joint leaders Gilberto Milos of Brazil and Zurab Azmaiparashvili of Georgia drew their game after only 13 moves. Both now have 2.5 points each after their penultimate round in the preliminaries. Azmaiparashvili, playing black, offered the draw. Azmaiparashvili is co-president of the Georgian Chess Federation and is responsible for external affairs and organisation of big events.

In Group D, Viswanathan Anand coasted to a draw with Pavel Tregubov of Krasnodar, Russia, in 17 moves of Sicilian Defence to lead alone.“Anand offered the draw,” Tregubov said. “The format is interesting – a combination of round robin and knockout, making a good compromise. I play Khalifman in the last round and my chances depend on the result of his game with Gelfand.”

In the women’s section, Group D leaders, Zhukova of Ukraine and Hoang Thanh Trang of Vietnam, with three points each, need only a draw against each other in the last round tomorow to qualify for the next round. World champion Xie Jun and Irina Krush were trailing them at two points each.

Results (Round 4):

Men: Group A: Boris Gulko drew with Morozevich; Gilberto Milos drew with Azmaiparashvili. Group B: Ponomariov drew with Ye; Xu lost to Short; Gurevich drew with Ivanchuk. Group C: Federov drew with Movsesian; Svidler bt Rizouk; Zhang drew with Bareev. Group D: Tissir lost to Tkachiev; Anand drew with Tregubov; Khalifman lost to Gelfand.

Women: Group A: Pokorna bt Alisa Maric; Payet lost to Kovalevskaya; Zhu drew with Xu; Group B: Mouradian lost to Skripchenko, Amuria lost to Qin, Stefanova lost to Wang Pin. Group C: Kosteniuk drew with Chiburdanidze; Wang Yu bt Khurtsidze, Cramling bt Laubshner. Group D: Hoang drew with Wang Lei, Irina Krush drew with Xie Jun, Hernandez drewwith Zhukova.

Standings: Men:Group A: Milos and Azmaiparashvili 2.5; Gulko 2, Morozevich 1. Group B: Ye Juangchuan 2.5, Xu and Short 2, Ponomariov 1.5; Group C: Bareev, Svidler and Movsesian 2,5 each, Zheng and Fedorov 2, Rizouk 0.5. Group D: Anand 3, Gelfand and Tkachiev 2.5; Tregubov 2; Khalifman 1.5; Tissir 0.5.