Vishy Anand is in the final of the 35th edition of the Leon Masters after defeating local hero Jaime Santos 2.5:1.5 in the 1st semi-final. The 15th World Chess Champion will play either Boris Gelfand or Andrey Esipenko in Sunday's final.

The Leon Masters in León, Spain is a 4-player knockout event, where each match is played over four rapid games (20 minutes + a 10-second increment per move). If a match ends 2:2 we get two 5+3 blitz games, and then Armageddon.

The tournament began on Friday 8th July with 5-time Indian World Chess Champion Vishy Anand beating 26-year-old Spanish GM Jaime Santos Latasa 2.5:1.5.

As you can see, it was far from one-way traffic, with Jaime Santos opening with a win, in just 24 moves! 24.Rad1! was a nice final touch.

It looks like 24...Qxd1 should be winning for Vishy, as after 25.Rxd1?? Rxd1+ Black is giving checkmate. However, after 24...Qxd1 Jaime has the zwischenzug, or inbetween move, 25.e6! and suddenly it's White who's winning.

Vishy resigned, but was able to hit back immediately in Game 2, after Jaime went astray in the following position.

25...Bxe3! and, although the white a5-pawn is dangerous, Black is very much still in the game. Instead after 25...Bxa5? 26.Nf5! Bxf5 27.exf5 f6 28.Bxb5 it turned out Vishy could gradually gang up on and win the pinned a5-bishop.

The 3rd game saw Vishy defend accurately to hold a position a pawn down, while in the 4th game what had seemed to be a quiet endgame with only a slight edge for White suddenly saw Anand giving checkmate.

After 51.Nd3! both 52.Rc5# and 52.b3# were threatened, so Jaime resigned.

Vishy will now play the final on Sunday, when he'll face either his 2012 World Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand, or 20-year-old Andrey Esipenko. They play their match from 16:30 CEST on Saturday July 9th.

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