Anand, Humpy yet to taste win in Corus chess

Reigning World Champion and India's number one player Viswanathan Anand and Women's world No.2 Koneru Humpy have yet to taste the victory after the end of five rounds, while teenager Parimarjan Negi and Pentala Harikrishna continued their good run in the 70th Corus Grandmasters chess tournament played at the Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands.

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The 15-year old Negi defeated Ukraine's Anna Ushenina in 48 moves registering his third win in a row in the Group ‘C’ while Anand settled for a quick draw with Levon Aronian of Armenia in the Group ‘A’ on Thursday.

With this win, Negi tied at fourth place with four others, which include Dutchmen Friso Nijboer and John Van Der Wiel, Greek Efstratios Grivas and Swede Pontus Carlsson. Anand settled for his fourth draw on the trot in the tournament and stands joint 11th after a first round loss to Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.

In Group B, Hari drew with the in-form Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia and moved to the sole second spot with 3.5 points. Humpy, who had lost two earlier rounds, drew with Armenia’s Gabriel Sargissian to remain at 13th place with 1.5 points after five rounds in Group B.

Hari is only a half a point behind sole leader Etienne Bacrot of France, who defeated previous leader Jan Smeets with black pieces in another game. The other overnight leader Maguns Carlsen followed the same and played out a quick draw with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine to secure a joint first place after the end of round 5.