By Xinhua
Mexico City : India’s Vishwanathan Anand emerged the sole leader with 3.5 points at the World Chess Championship here by defeating Russian Peter Svidler in an extremely complicated Marshall-Attack opening.
After the fifth round Tuesday night, Anand leads the eight-player competition with 3.5 points. Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk and Boris Gelfand are tied second with three points each, while Levon Aronian, Peter Leko and Alexander Morozevich have two points each and Svidler is last at 1.5 points.
The fifth round started Tuesday after a six-minute delay due to a lighting failure over board two where Anand took on Svidler.
The failure, that affected the eight players and thousands of chess fans worldwide following this event’s transmission through the Internet, has been plaguing the championships since Sunday when the current world champion Kramnik and Grischuk agreed to a draw on the same table.
Svidler told the media after the match: “I do not blame the lighting failure incident for my defeat. That had nothing to do with it. The ending was very complicated. I will analyse the game later to determine the definitive error.”
Ryussia’s Kramnik tied his game in a quick 24-move Italian opening against Hungarian Leko. Kramnik is now half a point behind Anand.
Russian Grischuk defeated countryman Morozevich in a 41-move Queen’s Gambit.
The round’s last game to finish ended in a win by Gelfand over Armenia’s Aronian in a 48-move Benoni Defence. Gelfand surprised Aronian in the opening with a theoretical novelty.
The sixth-round pairings Wednesday are (white pices first): Grischuk-Svidler, Leko-Anand, Gelfand-Morozevich and Aronian-Kramnik.
Each player has two hours each to make their first 40 moves and an additional hour for the next 20 moves when necessary.