Anand splits point with Leko in the 2nd Round of Dortmund Chess

Dortmund, June 24 (UNI) The 2nd Round Game of the Dortmund International Chess Meeting 2007 was played between World Number One Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand and his one time second Hungarian Grandmaster Peter Leko, which ended in a draw.

Previous to this drawn game, Anand has played 14 matches against Peter Leko, winning four and the rest were drawn.

Anand playing with white opened with e4 which Leko replied with e5 and after a long theoretical moves game settled for Ruy Lopez Marshall attack variation.

After opening exchanges Leko played a novelty on the 17th move with Re7. Leko played a nicely pawn structured game thru which he could hold the white supremacy.

However, Anand successfully averted all the black attacks and offered exchange of queens on the 25th move which Leko declined and Anand was quick to take the black queen and gave a check to Black King.

However, Leko has kept a pawn on c6 which averted the threat.

Once the queens were Exchanged, there was not much left in the game and both the players happily agreed to split the point.

In an exclusive interview Anand Spoke to UNI immediately after his drawn game, where he said, ''Today I simplified the ending where I am a pawn up but otherwise I realised that there is not much hope of winning the game. Black has very good combination so we made a draw after we swapped the queens.'' In the other three games, Arkadij Naiditsch, playing a Ruy Lopez Gligoric Variation against Norwegian Wiz Kid Magnus Carlsen, failed to tame his opponent and agreed to split the point after 35 moves.

The Game between the Championship leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Evgeny was played on Sicilian Taimanov variation. Alekseev played systematically a superior game and faced no problem beating the World Jr Champion in 45 moves.

The last game of the 2nd Round was played between Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand. In this Queen's Gambit Declined Semi Slav variation game Gelfand kept attacking the white king but the luck was not on his side today and despite having the chance to check the white king on 11th, 23rd and 26th moves failed to register a checkmate.

Thereafter, Kramnik gave check to the black King on 29th, 34th, 42nd and 57th move which broke Gelfand's defences and left with Ge, a bishop to support his King against Kramnik's King with two pawns and a knight.

He finally surrendered to the World Champion. With this win, Kramnik joined Alekseev to become the joint leader with 1.5 points, each to their credit.

Results Round 2 Viswanathan Anand drew with Peter Leko Arkadij Naiditsch drew with Magnus Carlsen Evgeny Alekseev beat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov Vladimir Kramnik beat Boris Gelfand 3rd Round Pairing [To be played on 26th June 2007] Boris Gelfand vs Vishy Anand Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs Vladimir Kramnik Magnus Carlsen vs Evgeny Alekseev Peter Leko vs Arkadij Naiditsch UNI XC SRS BST0110