Stavanger (Norway) June 2: Viswanathan Anand played out his fourth draw on the trot, signing peace with Wesley So of United States in the fourth round of the Altibox Norway Chess tournament here Saturday.
Taking his tally up to two points out of a possible four, Anand now has his task cut out for the remaining five games in this strongest tournament of the year. The World Rapid Champion needs a couple of victories to stake a claim in the tournament. Anand now shares the third spot along with Levon Aronian of Armenia, Wesley and Hikaru Nakamura of Japan.
Meanwhile, reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway was pleasantly surprised to see a rather unambitious approach with white pieces by Nakamura of United States. The game ended in a draw helping Carlsen to remain at the helm on three points from his four games. Sergey Karjakin of Russia took sole second spot on 2.5 points after defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.
In other games of the day, Aronian came back to fifty percent score after demolishing Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan while Chinese Ding Liren did not play his game against Fabiano Caruana of United States owing to an injury.
Anand tried the English opening, which gave only an optical advantage as Wesley was able to execute his plans in time and it was a fine finish in the end as the Filipino turned American sacrificed a rook to force perpetual checks. The next round will be crucial for Anand as he will meet Carlsen who will have white pieces.