draw game at Corus

Would you have declared the below position a draw?



I'm sometimes surprised at what point some expert chess players will declare a game a draw. The above position was declared a draw at the recent Corus 2007 tournament. The players were GMs Viswanathan Anand and Ruslan Ponomariov.

If such a position had been reached by me, the thought of a draw wouldn't even have been a twinkle in my mind. I would have played on. But then again, I'm not even a 1300 player, so better players probably see something in this position that I don't... o_o

agreed. top players are such sissies nowadays. most of them are more afraid of losing than eager to win.

White looks slightly better but Blacks ownership of the long diagonal makes life difficult. What should white try for? e4?

g4-g5-e4

Originally posted by Jusuh
g4-g5-e4

Originally posted by giantrobot
g4 has to be prepared (against Nxg4) and also what after ..h6

Originally posted by cmsMaster
e4 has to be prepared too.

A complex position with a very slight edge for white (as usual in the catalan).
Both sides could play on but a draw in the first round with black is quite ok and a draw in the first round vs anand is also quite acceptable,
I do hope we will see some more fighting games in the rest of the tournament.
todays best effort:
Negi-Spoelman 1-0: A truly spectacular game