LINARES, March 3: The Linares leg of the Morelia-Linares Super-GM tournament started with a string of draws in the eighth round. Indian star Viswanathan Anand drew a quiet 25-move game with Veselin Topalov as all four games of the first day in Linares ended in draws. This is the second leg of the tournament after seven rounds have been played at Morelia, Mexico.

That still kept NIIT-sponsored Anand in shared lead with Magnus Carlsen, who had a tough 42-move draw with Alexander Morozevich despite pressing for a win with black pieces. Vassily Ivanchuk is sole third half a point behind the jont-leaders.

Anand and Topalov played a Sicilian Najdorf and they split the point after just 25 moves. After white’s ninth move, Topalov deviated from 9...Be6 , which lost him the second-round game against Ivanchuk. Anand continued to hold initiative in the game for sometime, but then Black did manage to get to an active square with his queen's knight and keep his bishop safe. Black then took advantage of the lack of pressure along the f1-b5 diagonal in order to carry out his standard minority's attack.

Gradually Black (Topalov) successfully solved all his opening problems with some neat defence and returned home with half a point.

Lev Aronian and Peter Svidler spent just 16 moves in a quick game.

Leko and Ivanchuk were engaged in a 38-move struggle in a French Rubinstein while Morozevich managed to hold off in-form Carlsen in a 42-move battle coming out of a Ruy Lopez opening.

Results: 8th round: Anand drew with Topalov; Aronian drew with Svidler; Leko drew with Ivanchuk; Morozevich drew with Carlsen

Standings after Round 8: 1. Anand and Carlsen 5.0; 3. Ivanchuk 4.5; 4. Aronian and Svidler 4.0; 6. Leko and Topalov 3.5; 8. Morozevich 2.5