Splendid Anand earns draw

Indian Grandmaster holds a 3-2 lead over Veselin Topalov after five games

World champion Anand now leads the 12-game Match series by a 3-2 score. The draw was signed after 44 moves on Friday. Anand will have the advantage of playing with the white pieces in the 6th game on Sunday and also in the seventh game on Monday.

The colours will be reversed after the rest day on Sunday, at the halfway stage of the meet. The draw with the Black pieces on Friday should be a satisfactory result for Anand.
It was in game one that Anand was shocked by Topalov but he bounced back with a victory in next game, drew the third game and then scored a win in the fourth game to take the lead.

The players repeated moves of game three with Anand once again adopting the Slav defence, Smyslov variation and once again traded queens early. Anand once again gave an exhibition of his defensive skills as he appeared to have no problems whatsoever, a strong indication that he was very much on home territory and that the moves had been looked into and analyzed at home. After repeating the moves, it was Anand who deviated on the 15th turn. There was darkness for a while with power failure in the playing hall for almost 15 minutes before supply was resumed. Later it was announced that the whole a was affected.

However for the players on stage it was important to get back the concentration and later Anand said. “I  took some extra time after the electricity supply was resumed  just to make sure of my next moves and then executed it”. Anand and Topalov will play a total of 12 games, and if there is still no winner, there will be four more games in a rapid tiebreak.

Anand craftily exchanged pieces at every possible opportunity and just like in game three, a draw loomed large for a long time before the players actually signed it. At that point. the players had a rook and minor piece each with identical number of pawns.

The moves (game five): Veselin Topalov vs Viswanathan Anand:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 e6 7.f3 c5 8.e4 Bg6 9.Be3 cxd4 10.Qxd4 Qxd4 11.Bxd4 Nfd7 12.Nxd7 Nxd7 13.Bxc4 a6 14.Rc1 Rg8 15.h4 h5 16.Ne2 Bd6 17.Be3 Ne5 18.Nf4 Rc8 19.Bb3 Rxc1+ 20.Bxc1 Ke7 21.Ke2 Rc8 22.Bd2 f6 23.Nxg6+ Nxg6 24.g3 Ne5 25.f4 Nc6 26.Bc3 Bb4 27.Bxb4+ Nxb4 28.Rd1 Nc6 29.Rd2 g5 30.Kf2 g4 31.Rc2 Rd8 32.Ke3 Rd6 33.Rc5 Nb4 34.Rc7+ Kd8 35.Rc3 Ke7 36.e5 Rd7 37.exf6+ Kxf6 38.Ke2 Nc6 39.Ke1 Nd4 40.Bd1 a5 41.Rc5 Nf5 42.Rc3 Nd4 43.Rc5 Nf5 44.Rc3  ½-1/2.