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Anand held by Bareev; Adams upsets Kramnik

Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand of India could only manage a draw against Evgeny Bareev of Russia, allowing England's Michael Adams, who scored stunning victory over Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, to catch up with him in the lead position after the fourth round of Dortmund chess tournament.

Anand and Adams both have 3 points after four rounds.

Playing with black pieces, Anand employed his favourite Slav defence against Bareev, the game being a repetition of his second round match with Vladimir Akopian till the 11th move and looked headed for a similar endgame.

However, Bareev had other plans. He deviated and activated his rook on the open queen file. Anand had to surrender his bishop pair advantage but managed to keep his position impregnable.

After the exchange of the last pair of rooks, it became evident that Bareev did not have any entry despite having the better placed pieces. A draw was agreed to after 61 moves.

In an exciting match, Adams inflicted the first defeat on Kramnik in 18 months. The game started with the Sicilian Rossolime attack, with Adams having the white pieces.

Kramnik was quite comfortably placed after the opening with control in the centre but Adams initiated an attack against the king, forcing the Russian to create weaknesses.

As the game progressed, Adams got the vital light square Bishop in exchange fot his knight and the other Bishop of Kramnik remained precariously placed, confined to the defence of his weak king pawn.

As Adams' knight started making forays into the opposition wing, Kramnik sacrificed a piece on the 47th move hoping for perpetual checks. A perfect defence on the next few moves, however, netted Adams the full point.

Computer programme Deep Junior 6 held FIDE world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia to a draw in a modern defence game with white pieces.

The software adopted two knights set up and gained a slight advantage in the early middlegame. Khalifman allowed the computer to initiate a king side attack on the 13th move and was forced to part with pawns to resist the dangerous threats on the 19th move.

The queens got exchanged and Khalifman heaved a sigh of relief as the ensuing position offered equal chances despite his double pawn deficit thanks to the Bishops of opposite colours. The game ended in a draw after 65 moves.

Jeroen Piket of The Netherlands and Peter Leko of Hungary played a quick draw while the Queens gambit accepted with black pieces helped Robert Huebner of Germany to get an easy draw against Akopian.

Results:

E Bareev (2) drew with V Anand (3); M Adams (3) beat V Kramnik (2); Deep Junior 6 (2.5) drew with A Khalifman (1.5); V Akopian (1.5) drew with R Huebner (1); J Piket (1) drew with P Leko (2.5).