Anand in final, meets Bareev

It took Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand of India four tie-break games to finally force a favourable result in his semi-final clash against GM Boris Gelfand of Israel, after their second game also ended in a draw, and move into the final of the inaugural FIDE World Cup Chess championship in Shenang on Monday.

Anand did well to force a draw in the second classical game from a difficult position.

Tie-break rapid games were introduced to decide the winner. The deadlock continued after the first two games both of which ended in draws. After the third tie-break also ended in a similar result Anand called upon all his experience and expertise in the shorter version of the game to emerge winner in the fourth.

He will now clash with GM Evgeny Bareev of Russia for the title. Bareev also advanced to the final through a tie-break win over GM Gilberto Milos of Brazil.

The women's final will be played between WGMs Xu Yuhua of China and Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine.

Anand, playing black, opted for his favourite Nimzo Indian defence in the second classical game against Gelfand but the Israeli transposed it into a Catalan opening with some clever manoeuvres.

Gelfand introduced a novelty on the 15th move which landed Anand in an inferior position. By the 20th move, Anand was in deep trouble and was clearly minus in the opinion of many experts.