Anand draws with Aronian

Former world champion Viswanathan Anand came out unscathed with his first black game and got an easy draw against Levon Aronian of Armenia in the second round of the London Chess Classic, the final leg of the Grand Chess tour, here.

With his second draw in as many games, Anand took his tally to one point out of a possible two and still has four white games remaining out of the last seven rounds. The Indian ace will meet reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the third round. It turned out to be a very quiet day in the Classic as all five games ended in draws. There was little action in the drawn encounter between Anish Giri of Holland and Michael Adams of England.

Carlsen tried for a long time but American Faiano Caruana maintained his calm through a difficult yet precise defence while Alexander Grischuk of Russia held his forte together against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

In the most interesting game of the day, Frenchman Maxime-Vachier Lagrave did scare Hikaru Nakamura but could not really press home what looked like an optical advantage in the end.

The drawn melee meant that the status quo post the first round was retained in terms of tournament standings. Anish Giri, the lone winner in the tournament thus far at the expense of Topalov, remained in sole lead with 1.5 points and he is followed by everyone except Topalov on one point each.