Viswanathan Anand rode on his luck and the mistakes committed by his French opponent Etienne Bacrot as he played out a tense draw in the sixth round of the Mtel Masters Chess tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Fresh from a day's break, Anand played with white against Bacrot in the Ruy Lopez closed variations game but the Indian Grandmaster missed key moves in the middle game leaving Bacrot in a much better position.
However, luckily for the Indian, the French player committed mistakes in the time pressure which gave Anand the opportunity to equalise the game after 50 moves.
''It was a tense struggle. I was in big trouble and black was in a winning position. Luckily in the time pressure Bacrot committed a mistake and my Ra6 was a good resource,'' a relieved Anand said after his game.
The draw left the Indian with 4 points, half-a-point shy of leader American Gata Kamsky, who beat Ukranian Ruslan Ponomariov in his opening game of the second half.
Kamsky outplayed the former FIDE champion in style as he grabbed all his chances to win the game in 41 moves. Kamsky now has wins over everyone in the field except for Topalov and leads the tournament with an impressive 4.5.
In the other match played on Wednesday, Bulgarian Grandmaster Veselin Topalov opened his second half campaign on a disappointing note losing to Russian Peter Svidler. The two played Grunfeld defense in which the Bulgarian world champion got into problems.
Topalov tried to break Svidler several times but the latter was in no mood to relent and forced the Bulgarian to give up after 61 moves.
Round 6 Results: Viswanathan Anand drew with Etienne Bacrot; Gata Kamsky beat Ruslan Ponomariov; Peter Svidler beat Veselin Topalov.
Standings after Round 6: Gata Kamsky 4.5 points; Viswanathan Anand 4 points; Peter Svidler 3.5 points; Veselin Topalov 2.5 points; Etienne Bacrot 2 points; Ruslan Ponomariov 1.5 points.
Pairing for Round 7: Viswanathan Anand vs Veselin Topalov; Etienne Bacrot vs Gata Kamsky; Ruslan Ponomariov vs Peter Svidler.