Rediff

Linares, Mar 8: Title-contender Viswanathan Anand shunned risks and played out a safe draw with defending champion Levon Aronian of Armenia to retain a slender half point lead after the 12th round of the Morelia-Linares Chess tournament underway in Linares.

With just two rounds to go in the category-20 event, the Indian ace took his tally to 7.5 points out of a possible 12. He plays Hungarian Peter Leko and Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the last two rounds.

On the other hand, 16-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway continued his impressive run and remained on the heels of Anand after splitting a point with top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. Carlsen took his tally to an impressive seven points and remained in sole second spot.

The other two games of the day ended decisively with Russian Peter Svidler accounting for an out-of-sort Leko and Ivanchuk going down rather tamely against another Russia's Alexander Morozevich.

As things stand, Svidler moved to sole third spot after the victory with 6.5 points and maintained the tag of being the only unbeaten player in the tournament while Aronian was pushed to fourth spot on six points. Topalov, Ivanchuk and Morozevich share the fifth spot having 5.5 points apiece while Leko, after his dismal show, is now firmly in the cellar on 4.5 points.

In the remaining two rounds, Anand's main contender will be Carlsen only as the Norwegian boy-wonder has to meet Svidler and Leko in final outings here.

Svidler is hard to put down in current form while against Leko and Carlsen will play with black pieces in the tie. In all likelihood, one point from the remaining two games should be enough for Anand to grab the title.

Today is the final rest day of the marathon event and the battle resumes tomorrow for the final leg now.

Anand played out a theoretically equal Anti Marshall to draw with Aronian who played black. The routine opening moves were blitzed out in quick time and the players signed peace in just 23 moves in this shortest game of the day.

Svidler was the pick of day as he put an end to his all-draws with an emphatic victory over Leko who suffered his third loss in the event.

The Sicilian Najdorf by the Russian came good as black as Leko went haywire in the middle game to allow a dangerous attack.

Svidler wrapped the issue in just 36 moves.

Morozevich also won with black against Ivanchuk from a Scotch opening game. The age-old variation opted by Ivanchuk allowed enough counter play for Morozevich to get the complexities he was looking for and the ensuing tactical manoeuvres ensured his bounce back from the last spot.

Carlsen drew with Topalov from a Symmetrical English opening. Playing white Topalov could not get much out of the opening against his well-prepared opponent and it took just 25 moves for both to decide to split the point.

Parings, Round 13: Aronian v Ivanchuk; Carlsen v Svidler; Morozevich v Topalov; Anand v Leko.