France, Mar 28: World champion Viswanathan Anand played out two draws with Loek Van Wely of Holland to finish overall tied sixth after the 11th and final round of Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament.

Levon Aronian of Armenia won the tournament after two easy draw with Hungarian Peter Leko. The Armenian ended up with an impressive 14.5 points out of a possible 22 games played in this unique event that featured one blindfold and one rapid game in each round.

It was a four-way tie for the second spot in the combined standings with Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Leko sharing the honours on 12 points each.

Anand tied for the sixth spot alongside Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine with both ending with 11 points in all.

Apart from winning the combined title with a 2.5 points lead, Aronian also won the rapid section with a handsome 1.5 points margin.

While Aronian ended with 8 points in this section, Ivanchuk finished second on 6.5 points. The third place here was shared between Boris Gelfand of Israel, Topalov and Carlsen on 6 points each while Anand had to be content with eight place on 5 points.

It was a major setback for Anand, as Rapid chess is considered to be his forte.

In the Blindfold section, it was a four-way tie at the top between Aronian, Kramnik, Topalov and Alexander Morozevich of Russia who all ended up with 6.5 points each.

Anand finished tied fifth here along with Leko and Carlsen on six points.

The final day did not offer much to the chess buffs as far as the final score-line was concerned. All the mini-matches on the final day ended with a tied 1-1 result and there were only four decisive games that had little impact on the combined standings.

Anand could not get much as white against Van Wely in the blindfold game out of a Sicilian defense and the peace was signed in just 20 moves.

The rapid game was a similar affair coming out of a Queen's Indian defense where Anand played black. The game lasted 20 moves.

Peter Leko tried to play for a win against Aronian but caution was the name of the game in this contest. Leko got a slight plus but it did not amount to much. No one was really surprised when on move 25 the players began a repetition of moves and the peace was signed.

Aronian made an attempt to get an opening edge in the rapid game, without achieving anything tangible. The players arrived at a rook ending with opposite-coloured bishops the draw was a just result.

In the decisive games of the final round Veselin Topalov won one and lost one against Ivanchuk while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan did the same against Gelfand.

All the remaining games of the final day were drawn.