Anand

Morelia (Mexico): Viswanathan Anand played out an effortless draw with arch-rival and top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the first round of the Morelia-Linares chess tournament here.

Anand will now meet Peter Svidler of Russia in the second round.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway stole Day I honours after putting it across Alexander Morozevich of Russia to emerge as the early sole leader in the category-20 meet to be played in two phases in Morelia and later, Linares in Spain.

With Anand and Topalov signing peace, Svidler and Aronian followed suit and even though Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk appeared in fine fettle against Hungarian Peter Leko, the ‘time-factor’ forced the game to be drawn, leaving all the six players in joint second spot.

Anand employed the Queen’s Indian defence to counter Topalov’s queen pawn game and had no troubles whatsoever in maintaining the balance in the middle game.

The Bulgarian strove for some advantage in the queenside with a typical breakthrough but the Indian did not allow any leverage to his opponent. The peace was signed in 30 moves.

(PTI)