Dortmund: Anand, Kramnik game ends in a draw

After three straight victories, world champion Vishwanthan Anand drew with Braingames champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the eighth round of the Dortmund Sparkassen chess tournament in Dortmund, Germany.

Tournament leader Grandmaster Viktor Bologan of Moldova settled for an early truce with Linares champion Peter Leko of Hungary and maintained his full point lead over Kramnik and Anand.

There are two more rounds in the category-18 tournament, being played on a double round-robin basis.

Anand opened with the Queen's Gambit that came as a major surprise for Kramnik. The Russian had to see more surprises in the game as Anand employed a variation, which is quite unusual in top-level games.

Keeping his king in the centre, Anand embarked on his counterplay bid on the queen side and Kramnik could not really make a match of it. After just 21 moves, the draw was agreed to when only two rooks and a knight remained on the board.

In the previous round, Anand beat Bologan with a superb rook sacrifice and the Moldovan decided to play it safe with white pieces against Leko to get to 5.5 points after his 8 games in the event.

Bologan might have a tough call on hand in the remaining rounds when he is slated to play Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and Kramnik.