Anand Gets A Stalemate After Losing A Pawn
By Arvind Aaron

Viswanathan Anand went for a bishop sacrifice tactic that gave him a weak passed advanced pawn that soon got lost. World champion Vladimir Kramnik enoyed an extra pawn in the rook ending with the black pieces but faced the best possible defence by Anand as they made a fighting draw in 65 moves via a stalemate. Anand is certainly in the mood to fight and his quality of play speaks of it.

At the end of a big fighting draw, both Anand and Kramnik are jointly leading with 2/3 with eleven rounds still to be played in the World Chess Championship at Mexico City. Anand faces Morozevich with black on Sunday.

Earlier, in this game, Kramnik played the Petroff's defence and queens got exchanged off early. Anand's 22.Bxc7 gave that only chance for black. Anand's defence was resourceful and brilliant as he went about saving that half point in style.

Stalemate is rare in chess. Anand himself got one other stalemate in the second game of the Candidates Match against Alexey Dreev at Madras in 1991.

The results (round three) V.Anand (Ind) 2 drew V.Kramnik (Rus) 2, A.Morozevich (Rus) 1.5 bt P.Svidler (Rus) 1, A,Grischuk (Rus) 1.5 drew L.Aronian (Arm) 1, P.Leko (Hun) 1.5 drew B.Gelfand (Isr) 1.5.

Pairing for Sep 16, round four: Aronian v Leko, Morozevich v Anand, Kramnik v Grischuk, Svidler v Gelfand.