By IANS
Morelia (Mexico) : Viswanathan Anand continued his amazing run with the dark pieces as he beat Peter Leko to register his third successive win in the fifth round of the Morelia-Linares Grandmasters chess tournament here.
The win late Wednesday also put him in sole lead after five rounds of the category 21 tournament, which is played in two legs, in Mexico and Linares in Spain.
The world champion has now won all three games with black while with white he has lost one and drawn another.
Now Anand is in the lead with 3.5 points and Aronian is in second place with three.
Anand’s win over Leko was the first game to finish on a day when two of the four games produced results. Anand escaped with a victory after he was engaged in a Sicilian Najdorf with Leko. The Indian capitalised as Leko, trapped in time trouble, missed a possible win or at least a draw. Making good use of that, Anand grabbed a full point.
The other result came from young Magnus Carlsen who beat Veselin Topalov. Carlsen also won with black pieces as Topalov lost his second game in a row.
With Thursday being a rest day, Anand is looking well set to move into a commanding position before the second leg.
Carlsen nicely converted an extra pawn against Topalov to a win after adopting the Alekhine’s defense.
Each of the five rounds so far has produced at least two results making it one of the most competitive tournaments.
Radjabov and Ivanchuk drew in 38 moves of a Sicilian Paulsen, while Aronian and Shirov drew in just 18 moves of an English Opening.
Results: Fifth round: Leko lost to Anand; Topalov lost to Carlsen; Aronian drew with Shirov; Radjabov drew with Ivanchuk
Pairings for sixth round: Topalov v Anand; Aronian v Leko; Radjabov v Carlsen; Ivanchuk v Shirov
Points after fifth round: Anand (3.5); Aronian (3); Shirov, Carlsen and Topalov (2.5); Radjabov, Leko and Ivanchuk (2)