Anand draws with Gelfand, keeps lead

Vishwanathan Anand held on to his sole lead after the eighth round of the World Chess championship by drawing his game...

Vishwanathan Anand held on to his sole lead after the eighth round of the World Chess championship by drawing his game against his nearest rival Boris Gelfand.

The second leg of the double round robin tournament began with an encounter between the two leaders. By drawing with the black pieces, Anand ensured that he remained half a point ahead of Gelfand. The Gelfand-Anand draw presented defending champion Vladimir Kramnik with an opportunity to close in on the leader, but he only managed a draw in his game against Peter Svidler.

Peter Leko began the second half on a high note by defeating the in-form Russian GM Alexander Grischuk. With his first victory in the tournament, Leko moved into the fourth position pushing Grischuk to the fifth spot. Levon Aronian shares fifth spot with Grischuk after drawing his eighth round game against Alexander Morozevich.

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Gelfand-Anand was a tense encounter, as Gelfand, playing the white pieces, could have overtaken Anand by winning the game. Anand played a rare continuation against the Catalan opening by developing his bishop to ‘d6’ on the 10th move, instead of its more usual deployment on ‘e7’.

After the game, Anand said: “I wanted to surprise Boris with this idea of Bd6. It’s a very rare move, but I had done some work on it some months back.”