Anand settles for a quick draw

Viswanathan Anand settled for a quick draw against Ivan Sokolov to move into the joint lead after the fourth round of the Corus Grandmasters chess tournament at the de Moriaan Hall in Wijk Aan Zee.

Anand shares the lead with co-favourite Veselin Topalov and both have three points each, half a point ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand.

Three of the seven games produced results, but the day was far from boring as it saw some very hard fought and complex games. Of course many of them had mistakes, too.

In Group B, there was success for India with Koneru Humpy beating Katryna Lahno and taking her tally to 2.5 from four games. She is now tied for fourth, with Arkadij Naditsch leading the field with 3.5 points and three others at three points each.

Anand, playing with black was never in any trouble against Sokolov and agreed to take an early draw in just 15 moves from a Queen's Gambit Accepted. With no prospects of a win for either side the draw seemed fair and sensible.

The most interesting game of the day was a wild affair between Veselin Topalov and Loek van Wely. Topalov, who as usual went all out, received an interesting exchange sacrifice in the Slav Defence. Van Wely reacted well at the start but slowly started weakening. And then Topalov with uncompromising style managed to eke out a win for his third win in four games.

Leko got a small initiative against Vassily Ivanchuk's Classical French but Ivanchuk guided the game to a sterile Queen and Rook ending for a draw.

Michael Adams also got nothing from the opening against Sergey Karjakin in a Sicilian Najdorf in spite of accepting a pawn sacrifice. That game was agreed drawn in just 24 moves.

Boris Gelfand and Lev Aronian won with black pieces against Etienne Bacrot and Gata Kamsky.

Results of Round 4: Adams drew with Karjakin;  Leko drew with Ivanchuk; Sokolov drew with Anand; Van Wely lost to Topalov; Mamedyarov drew with Tiviakov; Bacrot lost to Gelfand; Kamsky lost to Aronian;

Standings after Round 4: 1. Anand and Topalov 3.0; 3. Gelfand and Ivanchuk 2.5; 5. Adams, Leko, Aronian, Karjakin and Mamedyarov 2.0 each; 10. Sokolov, Tiviakov, Bacrot and Van Wely 1.5 each; 14. Kamsky 1.0

Pairings for fifth round (on Thursday): Tiviakov v Sokolov; Topalov v Mamedyarov; Gelfand v van Wely; Karjakin v Bacrot; Aronian v Adams; Ivanchuk v Kamsky; Anand v Leko.