Russian-turned-American Grandmaster Gata Kamsky stormed into the final of the World Chess Cup, defeating Norwegian super talent Magnus Carlsen in the second game of the semi-finals in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, on Monday.
Kamsky, a challenger to Viswanathan Anand for the World championship in the last decade, won the return game with white pieces and is now through to fight the winner of the match between Alexei Shirov of Spain and Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine in the other semi-final, in which the return game also ended in a draw.
The two players will now have to battle it out in the tie-break games of shorter duration to determine the winner.
It was the simplicity of a genius that prevailed over the complexities of a great master in the making in the last game between Kamsky and Carlsen.
Having come so far, the chess world was backing Carlsen, 17, to win this important clash but once again Kamsky proved that he is here to stay.
It may be recalled that Kamksy had beaten Anand in the World championship cycle in the early 90s when they were held in India.
After reaching the finals of the World Championship, Kamsky's fine career was announced as ended and for quite some time he stayed away from competitive chess.
However, since 2005, when he announced a comeback, the rise of the former Russian has been phenomenal and now he can be a part of the World championship cycle again should he win the final.
The second game, after a draw in the first, turned out to be a cakewalk for Kamsky as Carlsen was caught on the wrong foot in the Petroff Defense playing black.
With clinical precision, Kamsky entered a slightly better endgame and forcefully won an exchange after Carlsen blundered. The rest was easy.
Karjakin tried but could not get much with his white pieces against Shirov who opted for an age-old set up in the Ruy Lopez. The pieces got exchanged at regular intervals and finally the players reached a level endgame where peace was signed in 33 moves.
Results semi-finals game 2: Sergey Karjakin (Ukr) drew with Alexei Shirov (Esp) 1-1, goes to tiebreaker; Gata Kamsky (Usa) beat Magnus Carlsen (Nor) 1.5-0.5.
