After two defeats with black pieces, Viswanathan Anand settled for a draw with white against leader Veselin Topalov and opened his account in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament in St. Louis on Tuesday.
In the first game to finish, Anand could not find any advantage from the opening lines of Sicilian Rossolimo opted by Topalov. The game ended in just 31 moves after the players were left with opposite-square bishops and five pawns each. The outcome was a pleasing one with black pieces for Topalov who stayed ahead of the field with 2.5 points.
Magnus Carlsen continued his comeback with a second successive victory.
The results (third round): Viswanathan Anand (0.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 2.5); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2) bt Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1.5); Wesley So (US, 1.5) bt Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 1); Hikaru Nakamura (US, 1.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (US, 0.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 2) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 2).
Fourth-round pairings: Caruana-Anand; Grischuk-Topalov; Giri-Carlsen; So-Aronian; Lagrave-Carlsen.
