Wijk Aan Zee: Viswanathan Anand recorded his second victory on the trot as he crushed former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine to inch closer to the leaders after the sixth round of the Corus tournament here, as reported in Friday?s City edition.

In the group C event, Parimarjan Negi?s IM-norm prospects suffered a setback as he went down to lower-rated B. Muhren of The Netherlands. Negi thus remained on two points.

Anand, who had a forgettable start here, has 3.5 points from six games and is now just half-a-point behind leaders Britain?s Michael Adams, Hungarian Peter Leko, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Cuban Lazaro Bruzon.

Behind the leaders are Russians Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Grischuk along with Anand, who is looking for hattrick of titles here.

In the next bunch are Ponomariov, Judit Polgar of Hungary and Loek van Wely who have three points each. There are seven rounds to go in this category 19 event.

It turned out be another exciting game for Anand in white after Ponomariov opted for the Sicilian Nazdorf and tackled the English attack in a rather off-beat fashion right from the opening. Anand routinely deployed his forces on best squares and unleashed an attack on the kingside that proved decisive. (PTI)