Vassily Ivanchuk kept his narrow lead at the Kings Tournament in Bucharest, Romania as both games in the second round were drawn. Fabiano Caruana drew his second game, this time with White in a Caro-Kann against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. The Italian was winning but then he blundered and allowed a perpetual. Veselin Topalov did something wrong with White in a Ruy Lopez but successfully defended a slightly worse ending. 

Round 2 under way in Bucharest | Photos provided by the organizers, more here

After their second round game both Caruana and Nisipeanu had reasons to be unhappy. From a position that was only slightly worse for him, the Romanian grandmaster started to make mistakes and then initiated a drawing combination that was flawed. However, his opponent "believed" him and indeed allowed a perpetual check. Caruana:

I just blundered. I hallucinated that I can go to the g-file.

PGN string

Tournament leader Ivanchuk had some chances to score another victory against Topalov, who didn't react well to a surprising pawn sac by the Ukrainian in the opening. Ivanchuk continued to play strong moves, and at some point Topalov had to flee into a worse ending. At move 65 he saved the half point.

PGN string

Topalov:

I made some mistakes in the opening. I missed 15...d5 and I should have taken of course. What I did was very wrong. He could put all of his pieces on very good squares and then I became worse. It looked like nothing special, equal more or less, but after move 40 it was a very upleasant position with the doubled pawns. I think he missed a good chance somewhere.

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Kings Tournament 2012 | Pairings & results

Kings Tournament 2012 | Round 2 standings