World champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw against Russian Peter Svidler as black while World No 1 Magnus Carlsen turned the tables on Sergey Karjakin of Russia to put a twist in the tale at the Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament in Sandnes, Norway.
After a shocking loss at the hands of American Hikaru Nakamura, Anand played it solid as black and did not have any problems in warding off the challenge of Svidler, who played the white side of a Sicilian Najdorf.
Carlsen, after four draws, was in a difficult situation against Karjakin but the Russian missed the thread and allowed a devastating attack on his king to suffer his first defeat after four victories.
In other games of the fifth round, Jon Ludvig Hammer came to the Norwegian party defeating Wang Hao of China. Nakamura split the point with former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria while Azerbaijani Teimour Radjabov did not give scope of any action to Levon Aronian of Armenia.
With four rounds remaining, Karjakin still leads the tournament on four points out of a possible five and he is now trailed by Carlsen and Nakamura a full point behind.
Aronian, Anand, Radjabov and Svidler share the fourth spot on 2.5 points each a half point ahead of Topalov. Wang Hao and Hammer are joint ninth in the 10-player round-robin event having 1.5 points apiece in their kitty.
Anand faced a recently popular system in the Sicilian Najdorf as black. The Indian ace yet again showed his fine preparation by going for a temporary pawn sacrifice early in the middle game and Svidler could find no way to push forward and reached a symmetrical structure after all queen side pawns were traded.
Carlsen summed up his play in the post game conference.
"Honestly I felt I was suffering, at least a little bit. I was not happy with the way the game was going," he said.
The Brayer Ruy Lopez had every thing in favour of Karjakin until he went for a pawn grabbing and an erroneous plan in the middle game. Carlsen was soon on top and followed it with a piece sacrifice that was taboo. The game lasted 46 moves.
It was a time scramble that decided the fate in the Wang Hao-Hammer encounter. Out of a King's Indian, a complicated middle game was reached wherein Hammer got a passed pawn.
The analysis confirmed that the Chinese had a draw but once he middle it, Hammer was in control and cruised to his first victory in the tournament.
Results round 5: Peter Svidler (Rus, 2.5) drew with V Anand (Ind, 2.5); Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 3) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 2); Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 4) lost to Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 3); Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 2.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 2.5); Jon Ludvig Hammer (Nor, 1.5) beat Wang Hao (Chn, 1.5).
