Morelia (Mexico): Viswanathan Anand was stunned by GM Lev Aronian of Armenia in the fifth round the Morelia-Linares tournament here on Thursday. The Indian GM thus conceded his position as sole leader and moved to joint second with Aronian.

Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen shot into the lead after his upset win over former world champion Veselin Topalov. The 16-year-old Norwegian, the youngest participant in the field, leads the table with 3.5 points from five games — half-a-point ahead of Anand and Aronian.

Anand’s game began quietly with the Indian ace adopting the Slav defence, but the players reached an endgame after the exchange of queens on the 15th move. The position was dynamically balanced as Anand had the better pawn structure to compensate Aronian’s bishop pair.

Anand began to manoeuvre his pieces cleverly to slowly exploit the pawn weakness in his opponent’s position. Aronian countered this attempt and suddenly changed the pace of the game with a sharp combination, sacrificing material to create two dangerous passed pawns.

The resulting position was full of tactical prospects and Anand found himself an exchange down when the dust had settled after baffling complications. He accepted defeat on the 48th move when he was faced with the loss of a knight.

Carlsen won his second game on the trot when he scored over Topalov. The game had a sensational end as Topalov surprised Carlsen by resigning in a drawn position.

Topalov resigned on the 64th move under the false impression that he was forced to lose a piece.

Ivanchuk and Peter Leko continued their solid play by drawing against Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler, respectively. Both Ivanchuk and Leko have drawn all their games so far. (PTI)