Linares (Spain): Another spate of draws were the order of the day with Braingames Champion Vladimir Kramnik maintaining his position atop the tables on 5.5 points and Vishwanathan Anand slipping to fourth place after a bye in the 10th round of Linares Super Grand Masters Chess tournament.

Anand is currently on 4.5 points but the Indian ace is likely to catch up in the next round when he plays against Kramnik.

Hungarian Peter Leko fought bravely to hold top rated Garry Kasparov of Russia and continued to trail Kramnik by half a point margin with an extra game in hand.

Kasparov also has 5 points but has one game less as his second and final bye is scheduled in the next round of this 7-players round robin category 20 tournament.

Kramnik gave full respect to the peaceful intentions of tail ender Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain and their game lasted a mere 13 moves before the draw was agreed to.

Earlier Vallejo had employed his pet English opening but got nothing following a simple and effective plan by Kramnik. The best game of the day was between Kasparov and Leko where the latter held on to his own in a very complex middle game.

Not wanting to test Leko's preparation in the Sicilian Sveshnikov, Kasparov went on the same path successfully trodden by Anand against Leko in their first meeting in this tournament.

The Rossolimo attack with white pieces gave Kasparov some space advantage in the middle game and a lot of hope of catching up with Kramnik in the standing list after an exchange sacrifice on the 25th move.

However, Leko just did not budge under pressure and sacrificed his extra material to emerge with an extra pawn. The Russian was left with little choice and the draw was agreed to when the perpetual checks on Leko's King appeared to be the only way out for Kasparov. The game lasted 33 moves.

World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine had to face a stiff challenge before getting the half point against the 15-year-old Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan. Playing white, Ponomariov also avoided the Sveshnikov but Radjabov's homework came in handy as he obtained the dynamic equilibrium quite easily with finely crafted manoeuvres in the middle game.

Ponomariov guided his pieces towards the lone weakness in black's position and successfully obtained a passed pawn in the ensuing queen and pawns endgame but Radjabov positioned his queen right. The peace treaty was signed on the 41st move when repetition of position became imminent.

PTI