Playing his third black in four games, Anand did not show any nervousness caused by losses with the slightly unfavourable colour in the game in round one and two.
After an easy draw with Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, this was a confident performance by the Indian who is hoping for a comeback in the USD 3,00,000 prize money tournament.
The number of decisive games remained on the decline since the first round that produced all decisive results in the 10-player round-robin event. While there were three and two respectively in the subsequent rounds in the fourth round it got reduced to just one.
In the other games of the day, world champion Magnus Carlsen was held to a draw by Anish Giri of Holland, Alexander Grischuk signed peace with Topalov while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France held Hikaru Nakamura.
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With five rounds still remaining, Aronian joined Topalov at the top on three points from four games and these two are now followed by Giri and Carlsen on 2.5 points each.
It's a group of two in each point group as Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave share the fifth spot on two points apiece while the duo of Wesley So and Grischuk are another half point adrift.
Anand chose the Semi Slav defense giving indication of a fight with black and Caruana chose a principled setup to gain control of the centre.
However, an opening improvement by Anand changed the evolution quickly as the Indian ace got a dynamic balance. As the middle game arrived Anand had an isolated passed pawn in the centre and for the major part the game revolved around that. As pawns changed hands on the queen side, Anand parted with a rook for Bishop to force equality.