Ruslan Ponomariov started the single round-robin in Salamanca with a loss against Eduardo Iturrizaga. He then drew Michael Adams to end the first day of action tied for sixth place. Three days later, the Ukrainian GM obtained outright victory after collecting five wins in a row in rounds 3-7.
Going into the final two rounds of the event, Ponomariov stood a half point behind sole leader Kirill Alekseenko. Round 6 saw the fight for first place becoming a two-horse race, since Alekseenko defeated direct contender Iturrizaga with the white pieces, while Ponomariov got the better of Elisabeth Paehtz. Alekseenko had 5 points to Ponomariov’s 4½.
In the deciding round, Alekseenko had black against Adams, while Ponomariov had white against Mariya Muzychuk. Adams made the most of a powerful passed pawn to beat Alekseenko, while Ponomariov outplayed Muzychuk in a double-edged encounter — thus allowing Ponomariov to leapfrog the former sole leader at the last hurdle.
Alekseenko and Iturrizaga finished in second and third place, respectively. Adams and Paehtz tied for fourth place with 3½ points each.
Michael Adams defeated Kirill Alekseenko in the final round
The playing hall during round 6
In a position with kings castled on opposite sides, Ponomariov found an effective exchange sacrifice to activate his strong dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal.
30.Rxg7 Qxg7 31.d5 not only threatens the queen on g7 and the knight on c6, but also allows White to bring the other rook to the attack via 31...Qg4 32.Rg1
In this agonising position for Black, Paehtz found nothing better than 32...Qxg1+, as she went on to resign the game three moves later.
Ruslan Ponomariov and Elisabeth Paehtz
