Anand gets better of Ding

 World champion Viswanathan Anand crashed through the defenses of Chinese champion Ding Liren and jumped to sixth spot after the end of the fifth round of the Alekhine Memorial chess tournament here at the Louvre. 

Ending the first leg of the tournament on a high, Anand proved too good for Liren, who had earlier beaten world number three Levon Aronian of Armenia in the tournament. It was simply an easy victory that came in quick time.

Local star Maxime Vachier-Lagraev made most of his opportunities against Peter Svidler of Russia to go in to sole lead on 3.5 points out of a possible five.

Laurent Fressinet of France caused a big upset defeating Vladimir Kramnik of Russia to move to joint second spot.

In other games of the day, Boris Gelfand of Israel drew with Aronian while English Michael Adams could not convert a slightly better endgame against Nikita Vituigov of Russia and achieved the same result.

The battle will now move to St Petersburg in Russia where the last four games will be played at the Russian museum.

Results (Round V): V Anand (Ind, 2.5) bt Ding Liren (Chn, 2); Laurent Fressinet (Fra, 3) bt Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 2); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1) lt to Maxime Vachier-Lagraev (Fra, 3.5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 3) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 3); Michael Adams (Eng, 3) drew with Nikita Vituigov (Rus, 2).