Day of draws at Linares

The spate of draws in the Linares Super Grandmasters tournament continued in the fourth round too with not a single decisive game being registered.

In the process, Grandmasters Michael Adams of England, and two Spaniards, Alexei Shirov and Francisco Pons Vallejo, emerged leaders with two points each in their kitty.

Indian Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand had his first rest day on Tuesday.

Of the three, Adams has played only three games as he had a bye in the first round while the other two have played four games each.

Anand shares the next position in the standing list alongside the other three participants, on 1.5 points from his three games so far.

With Anand having his first off day, the excitement was missing at the Linares tournament for the first time. The only exception was Shirov, who produced some 'fire' with his excellent intuition for tactics.

Playing black, the Latvian-born opened with the Sicilian defence against World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine and was up against a rather offbeat system.

The game continued on level terms in the middlegame and though Shirov's pieces appeared to be more active, Ponomariov's army too was up to the task.

The central breakthrough did not yield much to Shirov and he went on a sacrificing spree, giving up three pawns and a rook that only turned out enough for a draw by perpetual checks after 27 moves.

Kasparov continued to hunt for an elusive victory and could not do much against World championship finalist Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, with black pieces.

The opening was an irregular one and Ivanchuk did not give it a fair shot despite having the favourable colour. In the middlegame the pieces changed hands at regular intervals and it was a typical no-hit-no-miss draw that the two agreed to after shadow boxing for 34 moves.

Vallejo continued to impress with another easy draw in the tournament. Playing black against Adams, the 18-year-old stuck to his Berlin defence, an opening that earlier earned him an important half-a-point against Anand.

He displayed his in-depth preparation and Adams, who practically is in sole lead here with an extra game under his belt, decided not to test his opponent in the queen-less middlegame and settled to sign the truce in just 24 moves.

Many thought Adams had something to play for in the final position but England's best player was content with the outcome.

The tournament has produced just two decisive games out of a possible twelve so far and the battle is likely to heat up after the rest day today when Anand plays Ivanchuk with white pieces.

The encounter is of utmost importance to Anand as he lost to Ivanchuk with white pieces in the last semi-final game of the World championship and bowed out.