London Chess Classic: Anand draws with Adams

In the day’s only decisive battle, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Veselin Topalov and moved to the joint second spot. So Wesley maintained his position at the top, with three points, after drawing with Anish Giri.

Viswanathan Anand will play So Wesley in the fifth round.

Viswanathan Anand drew with Michael Adams to reach two points after four rounds of the London Chess Classic here on Monday.

In the day’s only decisive battle, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Veselin Topalov and moved to the joint second spot. So Wesley maintained his position at the top, with three points, after drawing with Anish Giri.

Anand, playing white, grabbed the central pawn offered by Adams on the 14th move. Adams, looking for compensation on the kingside, got nothing and slowly Anand looked better off with an extra pawn. However, Anand overlooked a tactical stroke that helped Adams win back the pawn, following a series of exchanges. Soon thereafter, draw was agreed in 32 moves.

Meanwhile, in the London FIDE Open, teenaged Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram emerged as the sole leader with an all-win record after five rounds.

In this formidable field, 17th-seeded Chithambaram outplayed joint overnight leader Switzerland’s Sebastian Bogner in just 31 moves in their Sicilian game. Second-seeded Frenchman Etienne Bacrot defeated USA’s Alexander Shabalov, the third overnight leader.

The results:

Fourth round: Viswanathan Anand (2) drew with Michael Adams (Eng, 1); Veselin Topalov (Bul, 0.5) lost to Hikaru Nakamura (US, 2.5); Anish Giri (Ned, 2) drew with Wesley So (US, 3); Vladmir Kramnik (Rus, 2.5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1.5); Fabiano Caruana (US, 2.5) drew with Levon Aronian (2.5).

Fifth round pairings: So-Anand; Nakamura-Kramnik; Aronian-Giri; Adams-Topalov; Vachier-Caruana.