 |
| Gelfand(W) and Anand (B) play on stage in front of large glass windows. |
After the first 10 games, the
2012 World Chess Championship in Moscow is knotted at 5-5. Only two classical games remain between 15th World Chess Champion
Viswanathan Anand of India and Challenger
Boris Gelfand of Israel. At this point, the stress on the combatants is high, as even one bad move would spell disaster.
Who will blink first?
World Championship Games
- Anand 1/2 Gelfand -- Gruenfeld (24) - opening surprise leads to small edge
- Gelfand 1/2 Anand -- Semi-Slav, Meran (25)
- Anand 1/2 Gelfand -- Neo-Gruenfeld (37) - White has chances with passer
- Gelfand 1/2 Anand -- Semi-Slav, Meran (34)
- Anand 1/2 Gelfand -- Sicilian, Pelikan (27)
- Gelfand 1/2 Anand -- Semi-Slav, Meran (29)
- Gelfand 1-0 Anand -- Semi-Slav, Meran (38) - beautiful positional squeeze
- Anand 1-0 Gelfand -- King's Indian (17) - Black missed 17.Qf2, trapping Q
- Gelfand 1/2 Anand -- Nimzo Indian, Gligoric (49) -- fortress with R+N for Q
- Anand 1/2 Gelfand -- Sicilian, 3.Bb5 (25)
- Gelfand 1/2 Anand -- Nimzo Indian, Gligoric (24)
- Anand 1/2 Gelfand -- Sicilian, 3.Bb5 (22)
Update May 28: Match is tied 6-6 after 12 classical games. Tiebreaks on Wednesday.
Make sure to check out the
official website for
excellent live coverage of the games and daily press conferences. You may also view the videos later in the day.
Highly recommended!
ChessBase News has great post-game reports. (
All photos in this post come from ChessBase.) Finally, check out the articles at Chess Life Online,
thorough analysis of games 7 and 8 by Grandmaster
Ian Rogers and a
first-hand account from Moscow by 14-year old master
Daniel Gurevich.
 |
| Regardless of the result, both players attend daily press conferences. |
The main story of the match to date has been the lack of action.
Eight games were drawn, five in under 30 moves. In fact, the average length of all 10 rounds was only 31 moves. While these short games may be of theoretical interest to Grandmasters, only three draws gave the typical chess fan anything worth cheering about (
rounds 1, 3 and 10). Critics may point to a "draw death" of chess due to the high level of opening preparation, especially for Black. On the other hand, it is always the responsibility of the player who moves first (White) to use the inherent small advantage to the fullest.
After six draws in a row at the start,
White did indeed win two games. First, Gelfand took advantage of several inaccuracies by Anand to win an
instructive positional squeeze. Just 24 hours later, Anand scored on a
terrible mistake by Gelfand, who resigned after 17 moves because the Black Queen got trapped by the unexpected move Qf2.
Alas, the match was tied once again! Game on!
 |
| Garry Kasparov, always blunt in his opinions. |
This match appears strange in other ways too. The 42-year old Champion seems to be beyond his prime after mediocre tournament results pushed him down to #4 on the
rating list. None other than 13th World Chess Champion
Garry Kasparov bluntly
assessed that Anand has been "
sliding downhill these years."
Ouch!! Perhaps fans will be more understanding when they realize that Anand has stayed near the top of the rating list for 20 years, and coincidentally, played his first
title match in 1995 against Kasparov himself!
The 43-year old Challenger is even older and lower rated.
When was the last time that the #20 player in the World came this close to being the Champion? In his defense, Gelfand did eliminate an impressive lineup of 2700+ Grandmasters en route to the final:
Sergey Karjakin,
Ruslan Ponomariov,
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov,
Gata Kamsky and
Alexander Grischuk. However, top rated
Magnus Carlsen and other elite players decided to
withdraw from the
Candidates Matches due to frequent changes in schedule and conditions imposed by the World Chess Federation
FIDE.
While it cannot be the fault of Anand or Gelfand that they square off for the World Championship, would not a match between #1 Carlsen and #2 Levon Aronian be more exciting? Methinks yes!
This brings us back to the
final two rounds of Anand against Gelfand. In the old days, title matches required combatants to fight to six wins--and draws didn't count! Challenger Kasparov and 12th World Champion
Anatoly Karpov played 48 games in 1984 (
including 17 draws in a row). Controversially, FIDE President
Florencio Campomanes aborted the
1984 match because the players were allegedly
too tired to continue! Youth finally prevailed, when Kasparov won the
1985 rematch in 24 games.
The World Championship matches have shrunk ever since.
Kramnik vs Kasparov (
2000) and
Kramnik vs Topalov (
Toilet Gate in 2006) were only 16 games each.
Anand vs Kramnik (
2008) went 12 games. As the matches become shorter, the role of
tiebreaks keeps growing. Check out the battery of rapid and blitz games set for Wednesday, if nobody wins in the last two rounds.
Tiebreaks if match ends 6-6
(
Wednesday starting at 1:00am PDT)
- 4 games of rapid G/25 + 10 second increment
- If still tied, 2 games of blitz G/5 + 10 second increment
- If still tied, repeat blitz up to four more times (10 games total)
- If still tied, play one Armageddon game: White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes + draw odds (3 second increment begins at move 61)
While Anand and Gelfand have both demonstrated success at faster time controls, I believe the tiebreak would heavily favor the well-respected speed skills of Anand. Nonetheless,
for the sake of classical chess, I hope that the World Championship does not come down to a blitz or (shudder) Armageddon game!
