Riding high on confidence, world champion Viswanathan Anand outsmarted Jon Ludvig Hammer of Norway to jump to the joint second spot in the Norway chess 2013 super tournament, here.
The penultimate round victory turned out to be an important one for Anand as it brought him within striking distance of winning the super tournament for which the Indian ace will need a victory against Wnag Hao of China in the last round.
Trailing the leader Sergey Karjakin of Russia by one and half points and second placed world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway by a full point with two rounds to go, Anand comes to the party as both Karjakin and Magnus lost to Peter Svidler of Russia and Wang Hao of China respectively in the penultimate round.
Once again it was proved that the atmosphere is not suited to sole leaders this season. After the end of the fourth round, Sergey Karjakin of Russian seemed to be running away with everything but with one round to go the Russian has to fight it out for the title.
Losing to compatriot Peter Svidler, Karjakin remained lucky to be still in sole lead as Calrsen also lost but the tide has now shifted in favour of the Indian ace with two wins on the trot.
In the other games of the day Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria drew with Levon Aronian of Armenia while American Hikaru Nakamura made some amends at the expense of Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.
With just one round to come the battle royale has reached a real high in the first super tournament on Norwegian soil.
Karjakin still enjoys a half point cushion on 5.5 points, ahead of Anand and Calrsen while Nakamura, Aronian and Svidler share the fourth spot on 4.5 points apiece.