Chess: Anand Held By Aronian

ANAND HELD BY ARONIAN

The Hindu
Dec 12 2011
India

World champion Viswanathan Anand’s hopes of catching up with his
rivals have almost ended after a draw with Levon Aronian of Armenia
at the end of the seventh round of the London Chess Classics here.

With his fourth draw in six games so far, Anand took his tally to
seven points in the football-like scoring system in place here. He
had a solitary victory over Nigel Short of England and a loss against
Hikaru Nakamura of United States.

In the open section, National champion Abhijeet Gupta scored a crushing
victory over Gawain Jones of England to jump into the sole lead with
seven points out of a possible eight. Grandmaster in the making,
Sahaj Grover was lucky to score over Bjorn Thorfinnsson of Iceland in
a keenly contested game. Grover shares the second spot on 6.5 points
alongside the English trio of Jovanka Houska, Peter Wells and Keith
Arkell. Meanwhile, in the Classic, the battle for supremacy heated
up with three decisive games out of a possible four.

Hikaru Nakamura saw the action from the sidelines as he got a bye. He
saw as many as three players overtake him on the points table. Topping
the list was Magnus Carlsen of Norway who scored over out of form
Michael Adams of England, who was having a torrid time at Olympia.

Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Luke McShane of England also joined
Carlsen atop the table on 12 points following victories over Englishmen
David Howell and Nigel Short respectively. Nakamura remained on 11
points while Anand and Aronian inched themselves up to seven points.

The results: Round 7: Levon Aronian (Arm, 7) drew with V. Anand (Ind,
7); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 12) bt Michael Adams (Eng, 3); Vladimir
Kramnik (Rus, 12) bt David Howell (Eng, 3); Nigel Short (Eng, 4)
lost to Luke Mcshane (Eng, 12); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 11) -bye.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress