Viswanathan Anand slipped to third place in the Mtel Masters chess tournament after he was held to a draw by former Russian Champion Peter Svidler. After a great start in the category-20 double round-robin event, Anand was on five points following another peace result. Veselin Topalov crushed Grandmaster Gata Kamsky of US for the second time in a row to emerge as a joint leader along with the American on 5.5 points with just one round remaining. Svidler remained on the fourth spot on 4.5 points and Frenchmen Etienne Bacrot retained his fifth spot. Mutual respectAnand has not had a decisive game with Svidler for quite some time now and the penultimate round of the strongest event of the year was no different either. Both players have great mutual respect, but the game played on Saturday was extremely hard fought. After the game Anand felt he was worse at some stage and with the clock ticking away he was content with the result. (PTI)
Anand slips to third place
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