Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): India’s Viswanathan Anand let his chance go and played a draw with former women’s world champion Yifan Hou of China in the 11th round to slip to third position in the 75th Tata Steel Chess tournament.
In search of a victory in order to narrow the gap with tournament leader Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Anand outplayed Yifan right from the opening but a blunder in what appeared to be a winning position cost the world champion an important half point.
Carlsen remained in sole lead and took his tally to 8.5 points out of a possible 11 and he is now followed by Levon Aronian of Armenia who defeated Hikaru Nakamura of the United States. With Aronian on 7.5 points, Anand slipped to sole third spot with seven points.
Meanwhile, P Harikrishna too could not get a full point against Erwin L’Ami of the Netherlands. Another draw took Harikrishna to a respectable 5.5 points in the category-20 super tournament.