World Champion Viswanathan Anand had to remain content with a 1-1 draw with Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the ninth round and was holding the joint lead in the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice, France.
The 1-1 tie on Tuesday allowed Levon Aronian of Armenia, who beat Alexander Morozevich (1.5-0.5) and Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who accounted for Sergey Karjakin 1.5-0.5, to draw level with the World Champion in the combined standings.
After nine rounds Anand, Aronian and Carlsen, with 11.5 points each, are at the joint lead while Kramnik (10 pts) is following the trio.
Carlsen stays firmly in control in the blindfold competition, one point ahead of Anand.
In the rapid competition Aronian leads, half a point ahead of Anand and Kamsky.
The encounter between Topalov and Anand was closely followed by everyone as they are not only the number one in the world rankings and the World Champion, but will also face each other in a World Championship match next year.
The blindfold game was a sharp and interesting fight, but it was also far from flawless.
In the opening, Topalov mixed up moves but admitted that something had gone wrong and after the game the players were mainly investigating if there had been moments where White could have gotten sufficient compensation for the exchange he sacrificed or that there had been points where Black could have consolidated his position and boasted a winning advantage.
The game ended in a draw by a repetition of moves and neither player objected to this result.
As Topalov said, ”I missed every second move,” to which Anand quipped, ”I missed the odd ones.”
The rapid game was also a draw, but this time their moves caused little excitement. In a Spanish sideline various pairs of pieces were exchanged and after 17 moves, when there was little left to play for the players called it a day.
