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Another draw for Anand

Nanjing (China): World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Norway's Magnus Carlsen to remain in joint second position after the end of the second round of the Pearl Spring chess tournament here.

Anand, who had drawn his first round encounter with Wang Yue of China, played out his second draw on the trot against Carlsen in the same opening that the Norwegian had played in the recent Bilbao Final Masters.

The Indian ace inched himself up to one point from his two outings and the lead positions remained unchanged as the other two games of the six players' double round-robin tournament also ended in draws.

Carlsen in sole lead

As a result of the draws melee, Carlsen remained in sole lead on 1.5 points and is now followed by Anand, Wang Yue, Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan and former World champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, who all have one point each.

Etienne Bacrot of France stands last with eight rounds still to play in the €250000 prize money tournament.

Anand yet again faced the Breyer variation in the Ruy Lopez but Carlsen was the first to deviate from their earlier game at Bilbao.

The middle game had typical features of the opening and even though Anand exerted pressure with his slightly better position it was not enough to force matters.

Meanwhile, Etienne Bacrot's quest for a victory did not materialise, thanks to a gutsy performance from Topalov

The results (second round): Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 1) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1.5); Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 0.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 1); Wang Yue (Chn, 1) drew with Vugar Gashimov (Aze, 1) .

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