Viswanathan Anand will be keen to put an end to his 'Dortmund woes' when he takes on Peter Leko of Hungary in the semi-final of the Dortmund Sparkassen chess tournament.
Given his performance in the meet so far, Anand starts a huge favourite against Leko in the opening board of the two-game semi-finals later on Thursday.
A tally of four points from six games in the prelims is definitely a morale booster for the World Cup champion as he did not carry home good memories from the previous two editions of the meeting.
Last year, a bad start limited Anand's scope to provide a real challenge for the title, won by Viktor Bologan of Moldova, and he had to be content with a joint second place alongside Kramnik.
Prior to that Anand finished at the bottom in 2001 after starting as the joint winner from the 2000 edition.
This time, however, things appear to be much better as Anand has displayed top form.
The second semifinal clash is between two Russians. Braingames match winner and World No. 3 Vladimir Kramnik has a psychological advantage against Russian champion Peter Svidler. Svidler, whose ratings shot up rapidly last year, is known for his fighting spirit. The grapevine has it that this one will be a close shave and only the one with better nerves will move to the final.
The fight for the five to eight places is between players who failed at the beginning of this unique event that was first fought on preliminaries and now the knockouts are in place.
German hope Arkadij Naiditsch impressed at the start of the tournament and even had the distinction of holding Anand twice. However, as the pressure to play for victory surfaced, Naiditsch was not able to handle it. The 18-year-old now plays with 14-year-old Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, who was even more impressive in the prelims of the other group.
The youngest ever Grandmaster, Karjakin, held Kramnik to a draw as many as four times in four games including in the tie-break.
The other match is between Bologan and 2004 Aeroflot Open winner Sergej Rublevsky of Russia.
Anand, who topped Group A ahead of Svidler, was particularly impressive in his victory over Svidler in the prelims where the Indian gave no chance to the Russian.
Svidler later bounced back with successive victories over Naiditsch and Rublevsky to propel him to a deserved second place.
On the other hand, Kramnik and Leko were stretched till the tiebreak stage before making the grade. Eventually the immense experience at the highest level came in handy for both as they topped with 4 and 3.5 points respectively after securing just three points apiece in six games under classical time control.
Semi-final line-up:
Viswanathan Anand v/s Peter Leko (Hun); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) v/s Peter Svidler (Rus).
For five to eight places:
Arkaditsch Naiditsch (Ger) v/s Sergey Karjakin (Ukr)
Viktor Bologan (Mda) v/s Sergei Rublevsky.
