Viswanathan Anand was seen struggling to get a half point against Hungarian Grandmaster Peter Leko in the third round of the Corus chess tournament in The Netherlands on Sunday.
Having drawn the first game against Russian GM Alexander Grischuk quite easily, Anand did not quite get in to his groove in his important encounter against Leko and was an exchange down without any material compensation at the time of going to the press.
Meanwhile, in the 'C' Group there was some good news for Indian followers as youngster Parimarjan Negi defeated Women Grandmaster Tea-Bosboom Lanchava of Netherlands in a fine attacking game.
Playing white Negi faced the Pirs defense and won apiece displaying his excellent imagination.
In other matches, GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria did another smart act by defeating third seed Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Topalov took his tally to 2 points from as many games and now leads solely in the event.
Playing black Topalov looked in the same demolition mood that he had acquired in the last FIDE World Championship at Tripoli in Libya. There the Bulgarian was in awesome form and had scored 9.5/10 before being ousted by the eventual winner Rustam Kasimdzhznov of Uzbekistan in the tiebreak games.
It was a Sicilian Nazdorf and expectedly an English attack by Kramnik who played white.
Off late Kramnik has been trying to establish himself in attack too but today it was more of a damper to such initiations. Topalov got the dynamic balance he was looking for after the opening in one of the less analysed structures and capitalised on a simple inaccuracy by Kramnik to turn the tide decisively in his favour.
In the final position, Kramnik was going to lose a piece for almost nothing.
The other game to end was between Dutchman Loek Van Wely and Bruzon Lazaro of Cuba that ended in a draw after tough fight.
Available results round 2 'A' group: Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 1) drew with Nigel Short (Eng, 1); Michael Adams (Eng, 0.5) playing Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 0.5); V Anand (Ind, 0.5) playing Peter Leko (Hun, 0.5); Loek Van Wely (Ned, 1) drew with Bruzon Lazaro (Cub, 1); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 0.5) lost to Veselin Topalov (Bul, 2); Rusl an Ponomariov (Ukr, 0) playing Judit Polgar (Hun, 1); Peter Svidler (Rus, 0) playing Ivan Sokolov (Ned, 0.5).
