Sinquefield Cup: Ninth straight draw for Anand; Ding Liren leads

Facing Sergey Karjakin with black pieces, Anand drew by perpectual checks in 35 moves and was placed second in the standings.

Viswanathan Anand during the 10th round of the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament.

A ninth straight draw kept Viswananathan Anand in the joint second place after the 10th and penultimate round of the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament here on Tuesday.

Facing Sergey Karjakin with black pieces, Anand drew by perpectual checks in 35 moves. With a round to go, Anand’s heads a four-way tie for the second place at 5.5 points. Ding Liren leads with six points.

Magnus Carlsen broke his sequence of nine draws and beat Wesley So in 43 moves to match Anand’s tally. Ian Nepomniachtchi, who started the day in joint lead with Ding Liren, blundered against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and lost in 46 moves.

The results: 10th round: Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 5.5) drew with Viswanathan Anand (5.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 4) drew with Ding Liren (Chn, 6); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 5.5) bt Wesley So (USA, 4); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 5.5) lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 5); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 5); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 4.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 4.5). Final-round pairings:

Anand-Nakamura; Liren-Mamedyarov;Vachier-Carlsen;Caruana-Karjakin;Anish-Nepomniachtchi;So-Aronian.