Viswanathan Anand [Images] set up a summit clash with defending champion Levon Aronian of Armenia after two wins and a draw on the second day of preliminaries at the Chess 960 World Championship in Mainz, Germany [Images].

Anand, who started off with three draws on the opening day, defeated Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan and Etienne Bacrot of France [Images] in the return game before settling for a draw with Aronian to seal his place in the final to be played later on Thursday.

After a fine 2.5/3 start, Aronian was the worthy winner of the preliminaries after scoring a victory over Kasimdzhanov and drawing the remaining two games with Bacrot and Anand.

The defending champion was quite clinical on his road to the final, where he starts as a slight favourite given his experience in this variant of the game.

The final will be played over four games with 20 minutes on each clock with a five-second increment after every move.

Anand, who is playing Chess 960 for the first time, accustomed himself much better on the second day and scored a fluent victory over Kasimdzhanov.