World champion Viswanathan Anand’s hunt for an elusive victory continued as he was held by former challenger Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the fourth round of London Chess Classic here on Wednesday.
Another draw statistically means that Anand hasn’t won for 17 Classical games in a row, including four matches in the last World championship, the Final Masters tournament where he finished winless and three games in the Classic here.
Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen of Norway zoomed ahead of the field with a sparkling victory over Gawain Jones of England.
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With his third win in four games, Carlsen shot into sole lead with 10 points in the soccer-like scoring system here.
The Norwegian is now followed by Kramnik, who is on eight points from four games and England’s Michael Adams is not far behind on seven from his three games.
American Hikaru Nakamura on five holds the fourth spot, while following him closely is Levon Aronian of Armenia who coasted to a fine victory against local star Luke McShane.
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Anand has slipped to sixth spot with three points coming from his third draw here and the world champion needs a few wins to be in with a chance in the tournament.
Gawain Jones on two points is seventh, while the eighth place is now shared by McShane and Judit Polgar with one point apiece.
In the other game of the day, Nakamura played out a draw with Michael Adams.
The results: (Fourth round): V. Anand (Ind, 3) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 8); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 10) bt Gawain Jones (Eng, 2); Luke McShane (Eng, 1) lost to Levon Aronian (Arm, 4); Michael Adams (Eng, 7) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 5); Judit Polgar (Hun, 1) had a bye.