Top seed in the championship with 2785 ELO points, Anand scored a mere 3.5 points from nine rounds. With the last round draw against Boris Gelfand, the Indian ended with an unimpressive tally of seven draws and two losses -- against Hungarian Judit Polgar and Russian Vladimir Kramnik.

In a queen's Indian game, Anand had white pieces against Gelfand but the Indian did not seem interested in trying for a win. He just seemed keen on finishing the game as quickly as possible. In less than an hour and 45 minutes the game was over and Anand offered and got the draw in 19 moves. The poor result means a heavy loss of ELO rating points for the Indian GM.

Anand is resting for the next two months till mid-June, when he plays Anatoly Karpov in theadvanced chess match in Leon.

Adams, who drew Anatoly Karpov on Friday, claimed the title when Kramnik, who needed a win to catch up with the Briton and beat him on tie-break score, was held to a draw by Bulgarian Veselin Topalov.

Adams, who tallied 6.0 points, scored the best result of his career thus far while Kramnik (5.5) finished second. The Peter Svidler-Polgar clash, the only one to produce a result in the final round, was a Sicilian-Najdorf game in which Svidler came up with passive play. Like Anand, Svidler was also hopelessly out of form here.

Results (9th round)

Vladimir Kramnik drew Veselin Topalov; Viktor Korchnoi drew Miguel Illescas, Viswanathan Anand drew Boris Gelfand; Judith Polgar bt Peter Svidler; Michael Adams drew Anatoly Karpov.

Final Positions

1 Michael Adams 6.0, 2 Kramnik 5.5, 3-4 Topalov & Illescas 5.0, 5-6 Gelfand and Karpov 4.5, 7 Korchnoi 4.0, 8-10 Anand, Svidler and Polgar 3.5.