Viswanathan Anand remained in joint lead in the Morelia-Linares chess tournament after drawing with top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the eighth round in Linares.

Having lost to Topalov in their first encounter, Anand played it safe in the return game against the former world champion and signed peace in just 25 moves to stay in joint lead with wonder boy Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

All the four games in the first round of the Linares leg ended in draws after the event was shifted here for the second half from Morelia in Mexico. As a result, the standings remained unchanged and Anand and Carlsen inched up to 5 points out of a possible 8 to share the lead.

Last minute replacement in this event, Vassily Ivanchuk remained on the third spot solely on 4.5 points after signing peace with Hungarian Peter Leko while Levon Aronian of Armenia and Russian Peter Svidler remained on his toes on 4 points each with a quick draw amongst themselves.

Topalov and Leko are next in standings on 3.5 points each and Russian Alexander Morozevich, who drew with Carlsen in the 8th round is still at the bottom of the standings on 2.5 points.

Anand played the white side of a Sicilian Najdorf and went for a surprise opening set up taking a cue from Ivanchuk's game against Topalov earlier in the tournament.

However, Topalov was apparently better prepared this time as he came out with correct manoeuvres in the middle game to remain unscathed.

The piece placement of the Bulgarian was much better and he equalised without much ado. After a couple of exchanges, the players decided to sign peace.

Morozevich tried hard to break the defenses of Carlsen but the 16-year old just did not succumb to the pressure put in by the Russian. The white side of a Ruy Lopez gave little to Morozevich and he attempted complications in the middle game by pushing his king side pawns.

Carlsen was not rattled though and even had an optical advantage at one point. The peace was signed after 42 moves in the rook and minor piece endgame.

Leko drew a routine game with Ivanchuk wherein the pieces flew off the board in quick time. It was a French Rubinstein that gave Ivanchuk easy play after a pawn sacrifice and the game reached a level king and pawns endgame in no time. The peace was signed in 38 moves.

In the other game of the day, Svidler held his Grunfeld defense in good stead with a quick draw with Aronian. The shortest game of the day lasted just 16 moves.

Results - Round 8: Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 3.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 4) drew with Peter Svidler (Rus, 4); Peter Leko (Hun, 3.5) drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 4.5); Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 2.5) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 5).