GM Vishwanathan Anand cruised into the finals of the Magistral Ciudad de Len Chess tournament with a comfortable 3-1 win over Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov.
The Indian ace, thus, remained on track to score his second hat-trick of victories at the prestigious event.
Anand will meet the winner of the other semifinal between Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan in the title clash.
The first game set the tone for the four-match rubber. Ponomariov, playing the black pieces, chose a rare line in the Winawer variation of the French Defense. The centre was closed in the opening and Anand began an attack on the kingside, gaining a lot of space advantage in the process.
The Ukrainian tried to stop Anand’s progress by sacrificing a pawn on the kingside and closing that part of the board.
He later recovered the pawn and exchanged queens but continued to have an inferior position. Anand manoeuvred his pieces with skill and kept a strong bind on the position in the endgame.
Having got his pieces in ideal positions, the Indian advanced his passed pawn in the ‘h’ file and forced his opponent’s resignation by winning material on the 49th move.
The game was clearly dominated by Anand and Ponomariov got no opportunity to create counter-threats.
Anand played the sharp Marshall gambit against the Spanish opening in the second game. Ponomariov returned the pawn and exposed Anand’s castled king in return. A sharp tactical tussle occurred on the board and Ponomariov was unable to exploit the breaking up of Anand’s castled position.
Anand had beaten Kasi-mdzhanov in the final here in 2005 and Topalov in 2006.