Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand’s Reign as World Chess Champion

Viswanathan Anand’s reign as world chess champion is all but over. Playing a spectacular ninth game, the Indian found a strong attack and looked like getting a mating attack before Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen pulled out the right moves to win his third game in the match. The game lasted only 28 moves but took two-and-a-half hours before the World No.1 made the scoreline 6-3 in his favour.

Carlsen is half-a-point away from dethroning Anand. The defending champion, on the other hand, will have to win all the three remaining games to take the match to the tie-breaker. Anand will play with black pieces in the 10th game on Friday.

Thursday’s game was Anand’s last chance to bounce back. He came three minutes before the match and Carlsen took his seat just before the start. It promised much when Anand started with the queen-pawn opening and Carlsen replied with the Nimzo-Indian Defence, a very popular system for black. This was the first time Anand chose the queen-pawn opening in this match.

Anand opted for a sharp Samisch variation with his fourth move and then enlivened the game with his kingside forays. Obviously, Anand had come prepared for the variation. By move 13, Anand had consumed only 10 minutes to Carlsen’s 30.

The fourth move by white usually leads to sharp, unbalanced positions with chances for both sides. Old masters such as Mikhail Botvinnik, David Bronstein, Efim Geller and Boris Spassky used these systems successfully while Alexei Shirov and Arthur Jussupow played this until recently.

White strives to leave the well-researched paths from time to time and tries some less popular variations in this line. Somehow, the opening lost its charm in the 1960s when black started finding the correct defence. However, in the 1990s, it came back to tournament play thanks to top players dusting it off from the archives.

In order to keep a good pawn structure, white slows down the development and brings out the queen. But Anand did not go for this idea and instead quickly created a strong pawn centre.

Anand took the game to uncleared waters with his kingside charge. Carlsen tried to counter it with his own advances on the queenside. It was an exciting encounter. Commenting on the game, former world women’s champion Susan Polgar quickly recalled a game that her sister Judit had played with black against Garry Kasparov in 1997, though from a different opening.

But by move 15, the game was already out of the book and the played lines. Anand’s 18th move seemed to worry Carlsen. He took a lot of time for his reply and when he did, there was a difference of 30 minutes between them on the clock.

But the position was significant in that Anand had to find a plan to checkmate Carlsen. If he failed, he would give Carlsen a strong counter-attack on the queenside. At this point, Anand had to make the right choice. Otherwise, he would have fallen behind by a move or two after a proper black defence. It was clear that Anand’s pawn chain was too strong.

After move 22, Anand thought for almost 35 minutes before making his move. Not only did Carlsen catch up with Anand on the clock, the Norwegian had also gained 10 minutes by the end of it. Anand had to make some 17 moves in the next 22 minutes.

When he came up with his queen and rook combination between moves 23 and 27, it looked like Anand was about to find a winning plan. He even spent about 40 minutes analysing his kingside attack but, in the end, he blundered a knight move to close the game.

“I missed some defence on the kingside and allowed the pawn chain,” he said. “After that, I had to counter-attack on the queenside,” Carlsen said.

Anand said the match situation did not allow him to be defensive. “I had to do something and that was why I changed my match strategy (on shifting to queen-pawn opening),” he said.

Source : DNA