Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Anand held by Dominguez in Linares

Linares (Spain), March 3: World champion Viswanathan Anand played out another draw with Cuban Lenier Dominguez, but other results of the day helped him figure joint third after 10th round of the Magistral Ciudad de Linares chess tournament here.

With just four rounds remaining in the tournament, which is a part of Grand Slam of Chess, Anand took his tally to five points out of a possible 10 and after the fourth consecutive draw in the tournament only a great finish can propel him to the top of the tally.

Overnight sole leader Alexander Grischuk of Russia ensured his stay on the top with 6.5 points after a hard-fought draw with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, who now stands sole second.
Anand shares the third spot with Aronian and Carlsen on 5 points while Radjabov and Wang Yue are now joint sixth on 4.5 points, a half point clear of tail-ender Dominguez.

Anand went for the sharp Russian system against Dominguez but the Cuban kept his cool in complications. By pushing his central pawn to the sixth rank Anand tried to make headway along the central files but again Dominguez stayed in the game with effective maneuvers.

The exchange of pieces ensued and the queens got traded on the 26th move. Nine moves later the draw was agreed to in a balanced endgame. During the day Magnus Carlsen of Norway found his nemesis in Wang Yue of China, Armenian Levon Aronian was also on the receiving end against Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.

Carlsen suffered his second loss against Wang Yue in about a month when the Chinese proved superior with black pieces. The Slav defense by Wang Yue resulted in an active position and the latter was at his technical best in posing maximum problems for Carlsen.

In the late stages of middle game Carlsen won an exchange but his king went for a long ride with threats of checkmate looming large. Even though Wang Yue missed a simple win, the position always remained in his control and steady moves led to a queen versus double rook endgame wherein passed pawns on the king side decided the issue. (PTI)

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