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Kasparov, Kramnik lead

Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik still lead the table with five points after the seven rounds in the first Corus Chess tournament. However, Vishwanathan Anand and Peter Leko are just half point behind the leaders.

Round 7 saw only one decisive game in which Lputian scored a second win in a row, this time against Korchnoi with black.

The Kasparov - Anand match was drawn after Kasparov missed a probable win.

A highly interesting situation occurred in Round 7 when the games between Kasparov and Anand and Van Wely and Short transposed into the same line of the Nimzo-Indian with g3 opening. Eventually, when the players realised, it meant that Van Wely and Short (a few moves behind) could follow the course of the Kasparov-Anand game and make their decisions accordingly.

The games followed Tal Shaked - Kiril Georgiev from the second round of the FIDE Championships in Las Vegas last year, until Kasparov (and subsequently Van Wely) played the novelty 19. Rd2 instead of Shaked's 19. Re1. Anand got into trouble with his 21. ...Bf3 but found the superior 21. ...Rfc8 allowing him to draw on move 25. Kasparov pressed hard and seemed to be close to winning until his 35. Rb7? had missed the strength of Anand's 35. ...f6. Far superior was 35. e5+ with the continuation 35 ...Qc2 36 Qxc2+ Rxc2 37 a5 Ra2 38 Ra8 Kg6 39 g4 h5 40 h3 hxg4 41 hxg4. Anand steered the subsequent rook and pawn ending to a draw on move 56.

The Leko-Piket game was drawn in 46 moves of an Open Ruy Lopez. Kramnik-Nikolic match was drawn in 21 moves when Nikolic emerged from the Queens Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with a completely level position.

The Timman-Polgar match was drawn in 31 moves of a Sozin Sicilian.

Smbat Lputian, having earned his first win against Judit Polgar in round 6, beat Viktor Korchnoi in round 7 on the black side of a 5.

The Adams-Morozevich match was a finely balanced French Tarrasch Defence and perhaps the most interesting game of the day, it was the last to finish, a draw in 64 moves.

Standings after 7 rounds:

Kasparov, Kramnik - 5 points

3. Anand, Leko - 4.5

5. Morozevich, Piket - 4

7. Adams, Short, Timman - 3.5

10. Nikolic - 3

11.Korchnoi, Lputian - 2.5

13. Polgar - 2

14. Van Wely - 1.5