World No 2 Anand, with three points, is now on sixth position in the ten-man nine round tournament.

Vladimir Kramnik of Russia scored a facile win over German Artur Yusupov to break away from Leko and become the sole leader with 4.5 points in this category-18 event.

After some scintillating success this season -- winning three classical tournaments and a rapid chess event in Frankfurt -- a win here has become elusive for him.

The Indian was involved in a Caro-Kann opening for the first time here. From the opening itself it became apparent that Leko was not going to give Anand any chance to create space and attempt a win.

Anand, who is fairly comfortable in Caro-Kann opening, was unable to force the issue and for the sixth time in a row he had to return with a halfpoint.Anand next faces Michael Adams of England and only a win in at least two of the three remaining rounds will see the Indian chess maestro get somewhere in the top three.

In sharp contrast to many of the earlier rounds, the sixth round provided a lot of excitement and three results, Kramnik's win over Yusupov, Peter Svidler demolishing the struggling Alexey Shirov and Adams' victory over Alexander Beliavsky despite playing with black pieces.

If Anand was finding a win difficult to come by, Shirov is in even more precarious condition as the Latvian-born Spanish is struggling to earn half point.

Shirov, who became challenger to Garry Kasparov of Russia by defeating Kramnik in candidates chess meeting for world chess council title, crashed to his fourth defeat in six rounds. He has just two draws so far.

Svidler defeated Shirov in Berlin defence in a Ruy Lopez game and the Spanish looked totally helpless as Svidler dominated him, even though opening never looked dangerous.

Kramnik has got intogroove where he scored his third win with white pieces in a Queen's Gambit. The Russian sacrificed a pawn and with it went on to win a minor piece, the Knight, and Yusupov had little option but to resign after 37 moves.

Vassily Ivanchuk, who looked in good form earlier on, seems to have lost concentration as he allowed Zoltan Almasi to get a draw by repetation in just 20 moves.

Results (6th round): kKramnik bt Yusupov, Svidler bt Shirov, Anand drew with Leko, Almasi drew with Ivanchuk, Beliavsky lost to Adams.

Points position: 1 Kramnik (4.5); 2-3 Adams and Leko (4 each); 4-5 Ivanchuk and Svidler (3.5 each); 6 Anand (3); 7 Alamsi (2.5); 8-9 Beliavsky and Yusupov (2 each); 10 Shirov (1).

Chanda stuns French IM

ANDORRA: Sandipan Chanda played a delightful game to shock International Master Eloi Relance of France while his Calcutta-mate Neelotpal Das let Grandmaster Tony Miles of UK off the hook in a mixed day efor Indians here.

Facing the highly-rated Relance (2490) withblack pieces in a Slav defence game, Chanda handled the middle-game orginally and sacrificed the rook to catch the white king in the centre. Relance gave up his queen for two rooks and went astray in the ensuing complicated struggle to give Chanda a well-deserved victory.

Das had Miles in a tight grip from the start from the White side on an Alekhine defence game. Castling on the queenside and pushing his Kingside pawns, Das had complete control of the board. The Grandmaster put up a sturdy defence and managed to trick the youngster in the pressure and won.

K Sasikiran and V Saravanan played two high-quality positional games to outwit Gtanadas Gomey and Hatold Handke respectively to reach five points each. Rahul Shetty blundered in an overwhelming position to let IM P Konguvel escape with a draw. Rahul, Konguval, Chanda and Das all are on 4.5 points.