Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand played out his second draw in three games, signing peace with Anish Giri of Holland in the third round of the Tata Steel Masters, here on Tuesday. It was a surprising decision by Anand to agree to a draw proposal by Giri in a rather better position with white pieces. It was a king pawn opening by Anand leading to a Berlin defense by Giri. Anand faced a new idea as early as on move nine and pounced on his opportunity to get a fine position by the 12th move.

While Anand had central control and finely deployed forces exerting pressure, Giri was saddled with a passive position looking at a difficult defense. It was on move 21st that Giri thought he was out of trouble and proposed a draw. "I didn't offer for him to agree; I offered a draw to change sort of the course of the game a little bit. I thought I was surviving the position already but I was feeling way too uncomfortable and I spent way too much time," Giri explained the reasoning behind his draw offer after the game. Anand thought for sometime before eventually accepting the offer. Playing under FIDE flag, Alireza Firouzja scored his second victory in the tournament cruising past Vladislav Artemiev of Russia.