Linares: Vishwanathan Anand played out his second draw in as many days splitting the point with tailender Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain in the ninth round of the Linares Super Grand Masters Chess tournament to remain in joint second place.

It turned out to be a rather uneventful day after some very hard fought games in the previous two rounds with draws being the order of the day. The draws meant Russian Braingames Champion Vladimir Kramnik regained sole lead as the other overnight leader Peter Leko of Hungary had a bye in this round.

Kramnik took his tally to 5 points from his 8 games played so far and is followed by Leko, Anand and top-seed Garry Kasparov of Russia on 4.5 points apiece. Of the three Leko has played a game less.

In joint fifth spot were Azerbaijani Teimour Radjabov and Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine on 3 points each while local hope Vallejo is at the bottom of the table on 2.5 points.

With the final rest day to follow, the players decided to take it easy and no one tried too hard. Anand was up against the Berlin defence by Vallejo who played black.

Anand had showcased his expertise against the same opening in the first round against Ponomariov but Vallejo appeared to have to done the home work better and had little trouble in getting a balanced endgame from the opening.

Routine exchanges led to a double rooks and pawns endgame wherein Vallejo had no chance of losing and Anand had to tackle an invasion by black. The peace treaty was a just result and was signed on the 28th move.

Kasparov employed the queen's gambit accepted against Radjabov and that surprised many as the world's highest rated player was expected to go all out against the young-gun from his home town after having suffered a dreadful loss in their previous encounter here last week.

Radjabov exchanged all the pieces that came his way and the players found themselves in a dead drawn bishops and pawns endgame with just three pawns on board. The game lasted 39 moves.

Kramnik launched an offensive against Ponomariov on the king side with some imaginative manoeuvres in the Ruy Lopez opening where the former played white.

However, Ponomariov fought bravely and took the pressure off with some good defence. Reaching a queen and opposite colour bishops endgame, the game ended in a draw on the 33rd move.

PTI