London: Viswanathan Anand played out a draw against Michael Adams but Magnus Carlsen escaped with a draw against Vladimir Kramnik in the sixth round of the London Chess Classic on Wednesday.
In the London Classic, a win fetches three points and a draw one. Carlsen, Anand and McShane have 10 points each. Carlsen has three wins, one draw and two losses. Anand is unbeaten with two wins and four draws, the same as McShane. But Carlsen is ahead on tie-breaks.
With Hikaru Nakamura missing chances against Luke McShane who is also on the same number of points as World Champion Anand, Norwegian Carlsen goes into the final round with an advantage as he has a superior tie-break to both Anand and McShane.
That means Calsen only has to beat tail-ender Nigel Short to retain his title in London. It could and should have been all so different as Kramnik played a very nice positional game and seemed to have obtained an overwhelming position. However, Carlsen kept struggling and was rewarded with an extremely unlikely draw.
Carlsen somehow conjured a draw from a lost position against Vladimir Kramnik to remain in pole position with just one round to go. He tried the rather dubious Chigorin Defence and Vladimir Kramnik played beautifully to obtain a dominant and winning position. But somehow Kramnik let the win get away. Carlsen said afterwards that he was indeed considering resigning.
Adams secured a minute advantage against Anand's Najdorf Defence but Anand played accurately enough and the game wound down to a draw. Adams has chosen a positional way of dealing with the Najdorf and Anand didn't like this position very much for black. But Anand held out. He improved his position enough for Adams to take the draw.
McShane had a lucky escape against Nakamura when an inaccuracy in the opening left him nearly in a lost position.
Short played the King's Gambit against David Howell and after a few interesting moments the game was agreed drawn around first time control. Short will be at the centre of attention on Thursday as he plays Carlsen in the final round.
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