Viswanathan Anand draws with Ivanchuk, stands at ninth spot

Victory continued to elude world champion Viswanathan Anand as he settled for his eighth successive draw, signing peace with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the eighth round here today.

Initially Anand had a slight edge with his white pieces against the Sicilian Accelerated Dragon by Ivanchuk but maintaining that solid position proved quite tough and agreed for a draw in just 25 moves.

With just five rounds to come, Anand stands at a disappointing ninth but things can improve if the Indian ace could win a few games from here.

"Somehow, Vassily found a solid position and I failed to make any progress," Anand admitted candidly in the post game conference.

Meanwhile, at the top of the tables, Alexei Shirov maintained his slender half-point lead after settling for a draw with world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

Shirov took his tally to six points out of a possible eight and remained half-point clear of Carlsen and Russian Vladimir Kramnik who defeated Hikaru Nakamura of the United States.

Nakamura slipped to sole fourth from joint second on 5 points and he is a half point ahead of defending champion Sergey Karjakin of Ukriane, Lenier Dominguez of Cuba, Hungarian Peter Leko and Ivanchuk who all have 4.5 points apiece.