Moscow: World champion Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Boris Gelfand of Israel in the fourth round of Tal Memorial chess tournament here.
Playing after the first rest day, Anand got something to play for but his last world championship challenger also up to the task in defense and the draw was a just result.
Anand elevated himself to joint fourth spot in standings moving to two points out of a possible four. Hikaru Nakamura of United States continued with his dominating form and outplayed Fabiano Caruana of Italy to jump to sole lead on three points. For the records, this was Nakamura's third straight victory after a first round loss against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan.
Mamedyarov played out a draw with Sergey Karjakin of Russia to take his tally to 2.5 points. The Azerbaijani shares the second spot with Gelfand on 2.5 points.
Anand shares the fourth spot with Caruana, World number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Dmiutry Andreikin of Russia.
In an interesting battle of the day, Andreikin held Carlsen to a draw. Sergey Karjakin is sharing the eighth spot along with compatriot Alexander Morozevich on 1.5 points, a half point ahead of lowest placed Vladimir Kramnik with five rounds still to go in the 100000 Euros prize money tournament.
Anand and Gelfand continued their discussion in the Rossolimo variation after the Israeli yet again chose the Sicilian defense. During the last world championship match here in 2012, Anand had extensively used the Rossolimo and in the fourth round it yielded a slightly better position.
Gelfand, however, did not have much to complain apart from finding out some precise defensive moves after the trade of queens. White remained with a miniscule advantage but it was not possible to make progress in the endgame. The game was drawn after 40 moves.
Nakamura played the game of the day introducing a fine new concept in the English attack employed by Caruana. The middle game saw white making progress on the queen side but Nakamura's attack against the proved decisive. Caruana could not withstand the heavy pieces onslaught that followed.
In other games of the day, Kramnik could not break the ice against Morozevich despite getting the complications on the board. Mamedyarov remained solid to hold Karjakin while Andreikin did not give any chance to Carlsen.
Results, Round 4: V Anand (Ind, 2) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr, 2.5); Alexader Morozevich (Rus, 1.5) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1); Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 2) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 2) lost to Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 3); Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 15.) drew with Shakhriayar Mamdyarov (Aze, 2.5).
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