NEW DELHI: A well-prepared Viswanathan Anand outfoxed Hungary’s Peter Leko with a flawless exhibition and joined Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik in the lead at 3.5 points after five rounds of the Tal memorial chess tournament in Moscow on Tuesday.

After a day of rest, when the action shifted from Hotel National to the GUM mall on the Red Square for the remaining five rounds, three boards ended in draws in 31 moves each and the attention stayed entirely on the games involving Anand and Kramnik.

Anand, playing white, pulled off a new move on the 22nd turn of his Anti Meran game that followed the lines played in his 2006 rapid game against Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov at Mainz, Germany. Leko accepted Anand’s early pawn-offer and went on to hold three pawns for a knight in the middle game.

But Anand smartly returned the knight for a pawn on the 22nd move, got back two more pawns with some smart play involving his queen and rook.

Leko could not hold on to his crumbling position and gave up after 45 moves.

So far, Anand has won both his games with white pieces and drawn the rest with black. With four rounds to go, Anand next plays black against top seed Magnus Carlsen, who has drawn all his games so far.

Even as Anand and Leko were involving in post-match analysis, Kramnik and Gelfand were locked in an interesting battle with both rushing to make 40 moves before the first time-control. Kramnik, playing black, held a pawn advantage and was hoping for Gelfand to go wrong while attempting to make nine moves in under a minute.

Gelfand, though in an inferior position after 40 moves, defended accurately in an ending involving a rook each and pawns. Kramnik’s extra pawn was rendered ineffective in the endgame and he settled for a draw in this 81-move marathon.

The results: Fifth round: Viswanathan Anand (3.5) bt Peter Leko (Hun, 1.5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 2.5) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 3.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 3) drew with Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 2); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 2.5) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2.5); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1.5) drew with Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr, 2.5).