Fourth draw on the trot leaves Anand two places from bottom

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. 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. Armenian Levon Aronian missed a simple win before finally drawing with world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

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.

Karjakin went for an early trading of light square Bishop which he was hoping for a safe game with little risk. Anand exchanged pieces at regular intervals which maintained the balance even though the position appeared to be slightly better for white. After all the minor pieces had changed hands, the result of the game was in no doubt and after 31 moves the players shook hands.

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