PTI

MEXICO, Sep 16: Top seeded Viswanathan Anand survived a few anxious moments before settling for a draw with arch-rival and defending champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the third round of the World Chess championship here.

Anand inched himself up to 2 points from two games and continued to lead the tables along with Kramnik. The day witnessed Russian Alexander Morozevich warding off his previous round loss as he scalped another Russian- Peter Svidler  in a keenly contested game.

The other games of the third round were drawn as Alexander Grischuk from Russia signed peace with Levon Aronian of Armenia while Hungarian Peter Leko reached the same result against Boris Gelfand of Israel.

With 11 rounds still to come in this 8-players double round robin event where each player meets the others twice, Morozevich, Gelfand, Grischuk and Leko share the third spot on 1.5 points each while Aronian and Svidler are now at the bottom of the tables with one point apiece.

For the second time in three days Anand faced the Petroff defense.

Earlier in the first round Gelfand had played the same opening against the Indian ace and had got an easy half point.

In the post game conference Kramnik said that he was 'well prepared' for this key match and indeed, as it happened, black had some practical chances.

Anand played the opening nonchalantly but was in trouble after the queens got traded as one of his far advanced pawn came under mortal danger. Kramnik pocketed the pawn and transposed to a rook and pawns endgame which needed precise defense from Anand.

Having lost similar endgames a few years back, Anand's homework came to the fore as he went on finding the best defense especially after black's 33rd move. The final position was a stalemate after 65 moves.

"This was one of the toughest games I played so far, so a draw is a fair result", Kramnik said.

Morozevich outplayed Svidler from an innocuous looking Scotch opening. After attaining a comfortable position in the middle game Svidler underestimated white's attacking potential on the queen side and paid heavy dividends. The game lasted 37 moves.

Grischuk opted for the Ruy Lopez against Aronian and went for a direct attack at the expense of a pawn. Aronian had to remain alert for a long time battling white's menacing forces but in the end the Armenian managed to hold his defense together.

"He was short of time, possibly with more time white could have found a better way to attack," Aronian said after the game.

The longest game of the championship so far was played between Leko and Gelfand who fought on for 100 moves before splitting the point from another Petroff of the day.

Results round 3: Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 2) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 2); Peter Leko (Hun, 1.5) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr, 1.5); Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 1.5) beat Peter Svidler (Rus, 1); Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 1.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 1).