[1]World champion Viswanathan Anand's winless streak continued as he played out a tame draw against out-of-form Sergey Karjakin of Russia - his fourth in as many games - in the fourth round of fifth Final Masters.
Playing in his first tournament after his world championship triumph in Moscow earlier this year, Anand could not force a win against Karjakin and inched himself up to four points under the soccer-like scoring system in place to occupy the fourth spot.
Italian Fabiano Caruana surged ahead of the field with a crushing victory over Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain. The other game of the day was fought intensely but Armenian Levon Aronian missed a simple win before finally drawing with world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
With six rounds still remaining in the super tournament, Caruana took his tally to 10 points with his third victory out of four games. Aronian continued to follow the leader but the gap has increased and Caruana now has a healthy four points lead over his nearest rival.
Carlsen moved to third spot on five points while Karjakin and Vallejo Pons share the fifth spot on two points in the six-player double round-robin event.
Anand did not have any troubles as black but did not get any chance either against Karjakin who opened with the queen pawn. The Indian ace went for the Slav defense, an opening that had served him quite well in the world championship match against Boris Gelfand of Israel.
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