Returning to an opening line he has not employed in nearly 14 years, Viswanathan Anand easily drew with Armenia’s Levon Aronian in the seventh round of the London Chess Classic here on Friday.
On his sixth move, Anand, playing from the black side of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, went for a pawn move — a choice he had not made in years. Aronian, too, played his part to perfection.
By the time draw was agreed in 30 moves, the players were left with only three pawns and a minor piece each on the board and over an hour on their clocks.
The results:
Seventh round: Levon Aronian (Arm, 3.5) drew with Viswanathan Anand (3.5); Wesley So (US, 5) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 4); Hikaru Nakamura (US, 4) bt Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3); Anish Giri (Ned, 3.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 1); Michael Adams (Eng, 3) drew with Fabiano Caruana (US, 4.5).
Eighth-round pairings: Topalov-Anand; Caruana-So; Nakamura-Aronian; Kramnik-Giri; Vachier-Adams .
