Dortmund: Viswanathan Anand drew his final round game against Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen to finish at tied second place in the Sparkassen Chess tournament at the Civic Theatre here.

World champion Vladimir Kramnik picked his eighth title in Dortmund when he signed peace pact with compatriot Evgeny Alekseev in their last game of the seven round event.

Hungarian GM Peter Leko tried to grab the second spot but could not crack the defence of Azerbaijani GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov while in another drawn game, Arkadij Naiditsch failed to lift himself from the bottom spot as he split point with Israel’s Boris Gelfand.

Anand played Slav defence against Carlsen and obtained a roughly equal position from the opening. After exchange of queens, Carlsen had a slight technical edge due to his bishop pair but the Indian set up a safe defensive formation.

The players agreed to split the point on the 39th move in an opposite colour bishop ending where neither had the slightest chance to win.

Kramnik once again relied on his favourite Petroff defence and easily equalised in the opening. Alekseev tried to build up pressure in the centre and managed to win a pawn on the queenside. However, he seriously weakened his king position, allowing Kramnik an easy draw.

(PTI)