Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands), Jan 22 (Inditop.com) Viswanathan Anand was still looking for his first win in the 72nd Corus Grandmasters chess tournament here as he drew for the fifth round in a row against Peter Leko, but Delhi youngster Parimarjan Negi beat American Varuzhan Akobian.
Negi also snapped up the day’s Best Game prize in Category B here Thursday.
The other Indians Pentala Harikrishna in Category B and Abhijit Gupta in Category C drew their games while Sowmya Swaminathan in Category C lost the fourth game in five rounds.
Meanwhile at the top in Category A, Alexei Shirov prolonged his winning streak with a hard-fought victory over Loek van Wely of the Netherlands in fifth-round action Thursday.
Playing black in an English game, the Latvia-born Spanish grandmaster unleashed an early kingside attack and never relented until van Wely decided he’d had enough at his 59th.
The win boosted Shirov’s score to a virtually unprecedented 5 points from the first five rounds and put him 1.5 points ahead of his nearest rivals in the fourteen-strong field.
Sharing second place were Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, Ukrainian veteran Vassili Ivanchuk and Hikaru Nakamura of the US, who were satisfied with a half point each in Thursday’s round.
Anand played black to reap his fifth half point in succession from an uneventful Ruy Lopez against Hungary’s Leko that was over in a mere 28 moves. Anand with 2.5 points is tied sixth.
Dutch champion Anish Giri remained on top of the standings in Corus Group B after a fine win with white in 38 moves from a Grunfeld-Indian against Emil Sutovsky of Israel but the Best Game prize of 250 euros in this division of the tournament went to India’s Negi for his victory in 47 moves with black from the same opening against Akobian.
Negi and Harikrishna, who drew with Wesley So of the Phillippines, have three points each and are tied for third with three others.
In Category C, Gupta drew with Benjamin Bok in a Sicilian-Rauzer and took his tally to three points in tied fourth place. Sowmya lost to Mariya Muzychuk and has just half a point.
rounak