Anand beats Leko, regains lead at Morelia

Morelia, Mexico, Feb 26 (UNI) Viswanathan Anand regained the joint top spot in the Morelia/Linares Super Grandmaster tournament after registering his fifth consecutive win over Hungarian GM Peter Leko in the seventh round here.

The Indian shares his position with 16-year-old Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen, who split points with Russian Peter Svidler in the final round of the Morelia leg of the event.

The tournament will continue in Linares, Spain from March 2 to 10.

Playing with Black, Anand was dominant from the start but was helped to some extent by Leko's blunders which in the end handed the Indian an easy win after 41 moves.

Anand has earlier beaten Leko in their five previous meetings and two of them -- the second-half game in San Luis 2005, Corus 2006 -- were normal time control.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk put a damper on Armenian GM Levon Aronian's aspirations with a white-piece win.

Former World Champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria defeated Russia's Alexander Morozevich to improve his position at the end of the table.

Results Round 7: Viswanath Anand beat Peter Leko Vassily Ivanchuk beat Levon Aronian Veselin Topalov beat Alexander Morozevich Peter Svidler drew with Magnus Carlsen Round 7 Standings: 1. Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand 4.5 3. Vassily Ivanchuk 4.0 4. Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler 3.5 6. Peter Leko and Veselin Topalov 3.0 7. Alexander Morozevich 2.0 UNI