Viswanthan Anand settled for his third draw on the trot, signing peace with Russian champion Peter Svidler in the fifth round of the Corus chess tournament here.The lead positions remained unchanged as draws dominated the fifth round yesterday with as many as five out of seven games ending in deadlocks. Overnight leaders Anand, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Peter Leko of Hungary, Michael Adams of England and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria maintained their joint lead with three points each.Following them a half point behind are local star Loek van Wely, Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, former champion Evgeny Bareev of Russia and Svidler. Dortmund winner Viktor Bologan of Moldova, Alexei Shirov of Spain, Zhang Zhong of China and Dutchmen Ivan Sokolov and Jan Timman share the tenth spot on two points apiece.Having missed his chances in the previous round against Bologan, Anand was clearly not at his best against Svidler who has elevated himself to fourth spot in the world ranking in the past one year. The players blitzed the opening moves of a Ruy Lopez open, where Anand playing Black, sacrificed a couple of pawns early in the middle game to withstand pressure in the centre.Svidler was forced to part one of his extra pawns and subsequent exchanges took the game to a queen and pawns endgame where Anand’s defensive skills were yet again on display. Just guiding his queen to key squares and creating threats against slightly weakened white pawns on the king side after Svidler took his king for a long walk, proved sufficient for the Indian to share the honours.Leko, playing white against Adams, left no stones unturned in the Ruy Lopez berlin. The queen-less middle game was devoid of much excitement but things livened up as Adams sacrificed his pawn on the queen side to set the stage for a difficult endgame for himself. Leko tried a lot of tricks and even missed a chance in the rook and pawns endgame where Adams just hung on till the very end. The longest game of the tourament so far lasted 101 moves.
