Anand, Kasparov share honours

The clash of the titans ended in a double deadlock, as former World champion Vishwanathan Anand drew his second game against the world's top rated player Garry Kasparov of Russia in the 10th round of the Linares Super Grandmasters' chess tournament.

Kasparov continues to lead the table with five points and is half a point adrift of World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine after eight games.

Anand is third along with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine on 4.5 points from nine games.

The excitement continued in the 10th round, which produced two decisive games of a the three and the draw between Anand and Kasparov was fought till the last.

It was a repetition of the king pawn opening in which Anand faced the Nazdorf Sicilian with white pieces. The Indian opted for the English attack on expected lines and rolled his kingside pawns to gain space.

Kasparov, on the other hand, was up to the task in the ensuing complexities and got his share of counter attack on the queenside with the right deployment of pieces.

On his 16th turn, Kasparov struck in the centre, advancing a pawn and achieved a dynamic balance. With both kings in the middle of the board in an open position, the game looked poised for an exciting finale but some safety manoeuvres by both players ensured a level game.

The queens changed hands on the 28th move and Kasparov sacrificed a pawn to give his pieces ample air. The draw was agreed to after 39 moves.

With Anand slated to get a bye in the next round and Kasparov having the advantage of white pieces against Ivanchuk, it seems unlikely that the Indian will be running for the top place with four more rounds remaining.

Ivanchuk beat Francisco Pons Vallejo of Spain, who apparently has run out of steam after an encouraging start.

It was a fantastic game that gave Ivanchuk the much-needed victory with white pieces. The middlegame was not as intense as Ivanchuk got his pieces doing the demolition work on the kingside very early and sacrificed a knight to exert pressure on the king that was flanked to the Ukrainian's advantage.

Vallejo fumbled soon and lost the piece and resigned in just 23 moves, by far the shortest decisive game in the tournament.

England's Michael Adams came back into reckoning with an enterprising victory over Spaniard Alexei Shirov from the white side of a Sicilian Rossolimo attack game.

Shirov went for a rather dubious plan in the later stages and found his rooks confined to the defence of his weakened king pawns.

Adams soon seized the advantage with his dark squared Bishop spitting fire. The counter-play bid by Shirov did not materialise and he called it a day on the 31st move.