A comfortable draw with second-placed Hikaru Nakamura kept Viswanathan Anand in the joint third spot after five rounds of the Norway Chess 2015 at Stavanger, Norway on Sunday.
Anand’s fourth draw took his tally to three points while overnight leader Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov escaped to victory against last-placed Jon Ludvig Hammer to aggregate 4.5 points.
On a day when Magnus Carlsen scored his first victory, though a rather unconvincing one, against Russia’s Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian overpowered second seeded Italian Fabiano Caruana.
The Nakamura-Anand battle in Nimzo-Indian lasted 45 moves but did not proved much excitement. At one stage, Anand’s position looked a bit unpleasant out of the opening that brought out a symmetrical pawn-structure. But Nakamura’s choice of continuation allowed Anand’s pieces, especially knights, to get active. Thereafter, Nakamura simplified the position and draw was agreed.
Topalov, following a dubious opening that left Hammer in total control, escaped the clutches of young Norwegian who adopted rather passive approach after sacrificing a knight for two kingside pawns.
The Bulgarian managed to develop his pieces in time to recover some lost ground. Later, in a drawn position, Hammer blundered and resigned in disgust.
In fact, this was Topalov’s second lucky win so far.
In the opening round, he looked completely lost against Carlsen who ran out of time on the clock when preparing to land the knockout punch.
The results:
Fifth round: Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 3.5) drew with Viswanathan Anand (3); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1.5) bt Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 2); Jon Ludvig Hammer (Nor, 1) lost to Veselin Topalov (Bul, 4.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 2) bt Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 2); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 2.5) drew with Anish Giri (3).
Sixth-round pairings: Anand-Lagrave; Grischuk-Topalov, Caruana-Hammer, Giri-Aronian and Carlsen-Nakamura.
