Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Lev Aronian in the second round even as his arch-rival Veselin Topalov suffered defeat on an adjacent table at the hands of Michael Adams in the Corus Grandmasters chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee's De Moriaan Hall.
Anand, the NIIT Brand Ambassador, did have a small advantage against Aronian's Ruy Lopez Anti-Marshall, but could not make it count. The Indian ace was a pawn up, but by the time a dead-draw was reached, he was a pawn down but nothing was likely from either side and the draw was a fair result from a long 66-move game.
Anand now has 1.5 points and is in tied second place with two others, Etienne Bacrot and Michael Adams.
Anand tried what many call the 'Spanish Torture' in the closed Ruy Lopez against World Cup winner Aronian. It was a long positional game of piece maneuvering and improving. Anand looked promising, especially because of his control of the important c4 and d5 squares. At one stage his knight was dominating. But black got to trade his weak pawns and generate some activity. Still, the Indian looked winning, but Anand later said it was drawish. Anand would have been disappointed at not converting the edge into a full point, which would have been very useful.
Adams, who has a very decent record against FIDE World chess champion Topalov got a good opening which he used to launch a nice attack on Topalov's King following a Sicilian Scheveningen opening. He opened the Kingside at the temporary expense of a piece sacrifice, and ended up with Queen, Bishop and four pawns against two Rooks, Bishop and two pawns but with Topalov's pieces tied up Adams brought home the point effectively.
Kamsky came back into the event with a good win over Boris Gelfand.
Pairings for Round 3: Mamedyarov v Sokolov; Tiviakov v van Wely; Topalov v Bacrot; Gelfand v Adams; Karjakin v Kamsky; Aronian v Leko; Ivanchuk v Anand
Results of round 2: Bacrot beat Tiviakov; Van Wely drew with Mamedyarov; Leko drew with Karjakin; Kamsky beat Gelfand; Adams beat Topalov; Anand drew with Aronian; Sokolov lost to Ivanchuk.
Points after Round 2: 1. Ivanchuk 2.0; 2. Adams, Bacrot and Anand 1.5 each; 5. Mamedyarov, Topalov, Van Wely, Leko and Kamsky 1.0 each; 10. Tiviakov, Aronian, Sokolov, Gelfand and Karjakin 0.5 each.