World junior champion Levon Aronian of Armenia failed to capitalise on some real chance to win the World Chess Cup in the keenly contested second game of the final against former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine that concluded in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia on Friday.
The second draw on the trot in the two mini-match games under normal time control means that the fate of the winner will now be decided in the tiebreak games of shorter duration to be played on Saturday.
At first there will be two games under rapid time control and if the tie persists two more games under blitz chess rules will be played. If the deadlock continues there will be one last sudden death or Armageddon game in which White will get six minutes against Black's five. In the event of a draw Black will be declared the winner.
Interestingly enough, as many as six of the eight matches of the final round will be decided in the tiebreaker as only two Russian players Sergei Rublevsky and Vbladimir Malakhov were able to hold on to their lead after the victory in the first game played on Thursday.
It was the decider for the 7th place in which Rublevsky edged out veteran GM Mikhail Gurevich of Belgium while Valakhov achieved the 'winner draw' against Spanish hope Francisco Vallejo Pons.
Having beaten Vallejo in the first game of the match for the 11th place, Malakhov got the draw he was looking for after some hard work and he can now hope to be amongst the next World Championship match tournament cycle as a standby.
The much-followed teenager Magnus Carlsen failed to deliver the goods with black pieces against Gata Kamsky.
He hit back vigorously in the return game after losing the first game. With the scores leveled these two will also be seen in action in the rapid games.
Meanwhile, in the match between Aronian and Ponomaroiv there was some real action despite some murmurs at the start that this one would end in a quick draw too and tie-breaker will decide the winners.
Thankfully for the chess buffs, both the players paid little attention to them and the result was a game that will find its place in the 'future history books' of the game according to the pundits here.
Starting with the Queen pawn Aronian faced the Tartakower variation and it was a full throttle fight right from the word go. As the middle game surfaced Aronian had a tiny advantage that was tossed up for more action.
Ponomariov was the first to get some optical comforts with his queen engulfed behind the barricade of opposition pawns but soon after Aronian made a strong statement by banging down a black pawn on the queenside.
Subsequent exchanges led to a knight endgame wherein Aronian had an extra pawn and should have won but Ponomariov's defence kept him in good stead as he just hanged there making the correct moves. The game ended in a draw after a marathon 76 moves, giving indication of a bloody battle that lies ahead in the tie-breaker.
Complete results: Final game 2 (scores in the end):
Levon Aronian (Arm) drew with Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 1-1, goes to tiebreak 3-4 places;
Alexander Grischuk (Rus) drew with Etienne Bacrot (Fra) 1-1, goes to tiebreak 5-6 places;
Evgeny Bareev (Rus) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr) 1-1, goes to tiebreak 7-8 places;
Mikhail Gurevich (Bel) drew with Sergei Rublevsky (Rus) 0.5-1.5, goes to tiebreak 9-10 places;
Gata Kamsky (USA)beat Magnus Carlsen (Nor) 1-1, goes to tiebreak 11-12 places;
Francisco Vallejo Pons (Esp) drew with Vladimir Malakhov (Rus) 0.5-1.5, goes to tiebreak 13-14 places;
Alexey Dreev (Rus) beat Loek Van Wely (Ned) 1-1, goes to tiebreak 15-16 places;
Joel Lautier (Fra) drew with Konstantin Sakaev (Rus) 1-1, goes to tiebreak.