World champion Viswanathan Anand crashed through the defences of Fabiano Caruana of Italy to jump to joint second spot after the third round of the premier section of the Tata Steel chess tournament here on Tuesday.
Anand showed his sublime touch and Caruana, who started the tournament ahead of Anand in world ranking, fell just behind the world champion following the loss in live ratings.
It turned out to be another good day for debutant P. Harikrishna as he survived an inferior position before splitting the point with World No. 3 Levon Aronian of Armenia.
Russian Sergey Karjakin surged ahead of the field at the expense of Wang Hao of China who went for unwarranted complications from what looked like an equal position.
With his second victory in three days, Karjakin moved to sole lead on 2.5 points and is followed by World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Anand and Harikrishna who all have two points apiece.
Aronian shares the fifth spot along with Hikaru Nakamura of the United States and Dutchmen Erwin L’Ami and Ivan Sokolov. Not far behind are five others including Caruana and Anish Giri of Holland with one point apiece.
The results: Third round: V. Anand (2) bt Fabino Caruana (1); P. Harikrishna (2) drew with Levon Aronian (1.5); Magnus Carlsen (2) bt Loek van Wely (1); Sergey Karjakin (2.5) bt Wang Hao (1); Ivan Sokolov (1.5) drew with Anish Giri (1); Peter Leko (1.5) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (1.5); Yifan Hou (1) drew with Erwin L’Ami (1.5).
