Anand draws against Karjakin in 6th round of Norway Chess

Sandnes: World champion Viswanathan Anand let Russian Sergey Karjakin off the hook and drew after a stellar performance in the sixth round of Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament here.

Right from the start, Anand was seen pressing for some advantage and it came after some real hard work. However, Karjakin did his bit to keep finding difficult defensive moves and in the end the Indian had to settle for perpetual checks to force the split of the point.

World number one and local star Magnus Carlsen played a vintage endgame to beat Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan on an exciting day that also saw Armenian Levon Aronian scalping for Norwegian Jon Ludvig Hammer.

In other games of the day Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria shared points with Wang Hao of China, while American Hikaru Nakamura got the same result against Russian Peter Svidler.

With just three rounds to go in the 10-player round-robin tournament, Karjakin continued to lead the table on 4.5 points with Carlsen closing in with four points in his bag.

Nakamura and Aronian share the third spot another half point adrift while Anand slipped to joint fifth spot along with Svidler having three points apiece. Topalov and Radjabov are on seventh spot with 2.5, a half point more than Wang Hao while Hammer was again pushed to the bottom on 1.5 points.

Anand faced the Berlin and went for a position akin to the exchange variation in the Ruy Lopez. The Indian ace came up with some brilliant manoeuvres in the middle game to exert pressure on an uncastled black king and many believed the world champion will cruise home.

"I was incredibly close but I didn't see it," said Anand after the game had petered out to a draw through perpetual checks.

After a slow start Carlsen is catching up big time. On the receiving end was Radjabov who along with most of the others believed the endgame that reached as black should have been drawn.

Carlsen with just three pawns, rook and one minor piece, however, continued to torment posing difficulties to find the best defense. Radjabov crumbled and lost after 68 moves.

Levon Aronian found a little sub-variation in the Grunfeld to score a facile victory against Hammer who played black. It was a short affair lasting just 24 moves.