In a cerebral discipline like chess, bravado sometimes
serves as a surprise weapon. If the rival happens to be the game’s
strongest player in a World title-match, there is always a strong
likelihood of the ploy backfiring.
Some background. Even in GM play, a chess game can be separated into three phases:•The Opening, or the first 10-15 moves of the game
•The Middle Game, when the players looks for opportunities to develop advantages, capitalise on a better opening position, or engage in tactical forays intended to lead to checkmate and avoid…
•The Endgame, when most of the pieces have come off the board, often including the queens, and the players try to outmaneuver each other to convert slight edges into wins, or in some case, to “hold” a draw
Interestingly, from an intellectual standpoint, endgames can be the most demanding part of a game. They have all been extensively studied and, unlike the middle game (where tactics can come to the fore) or the opening (where extensively prepared lines of play can be critical), the endgame demands precision. One bad
— One! — move can literally be the difference between a win, a loss, or a draw.
Trailing by a point and needing to at least hold Magnus
Carlsen to a draw in Game 7, Anand boldly chose an opening that had
backfired in Chennai last year. Anand looked fine into the middle game
but Carlsen pushed him hard for the next five hours.
Anand eventually found the drawing continuation on the
70th move. Carlsen, however, kept the challenger busy by searching for
more options. Anand, with less time on the clock, held firm.
Fabiano Caruana, the World No.2, seemed to have read it
early; he tweeted: “Seems like people are overestimating white’s
chances. The ending looks pretty drawish to me.” But it needed precise
continuation from Anand to survive.
After suffering a loss with black pieces on Saturday,
Anand was expected to prepare a suitable response to Carlsen for the
crucial game.
Anand’s choice, if executed correctly, usually leads to a
draw. Given Anand’s abilities to defend and Carlsen’s end-game skills,
the game was fought for 122 moves though the result became clear much
earlier.
Eventually only the two kings and Carlsen’s knight were left on
the board.
Carlsen would have been somewhat pleased with Anand
choosing to repeat the Ruy Lopez Berlin seen in Game 2. After ending up
losing that game, Anand was not expected to invite Carlsen to play the
position again. But Anand seemed to back himself to get into Carlsen’s
territory and come out unhurt; pulling it off would earn him a
psychological point under the given circumstances.
When talking about his approach against Carlsen
last year, Anand had said: “I made a decision not to avoid long games;
well, not to be scared of them. If a long game happens, I should be
ready to face a long battle, and if I make my point and confront him
there, at his strongest point admittedly; if I can play a good long game
and defend well, then it takes the pressure off me for everything
else.”
Perhaps, Anand entered Monday’s game in a similar
mindset. The fact that both players reeled off the first 23 moves
rapidly, needing less than a minute per move, showed they were still in
their home-preparation.
Until Anand’s 24th move, the position was identical to
the one seen between Anish Giri and Teimour Radjabov this year in
Tashkent. That game ended in a 52-move draw.
For the second successive day, the early queen-exchange
dislodged Anand’s king. It did not matter since Anand looked prepared
and was ready to get into the laborious Berlin endgame, with fewer
pieces.
The first signs of worry for Anand came to the fore when
he took nearly 28 minutes to respond to Carlsen’s knight move on the
28th turn. In comparison, by this time, Carlsen had consumed only 25
minutes.
In fact, Anand’s chosen move — bringing his knight to
the centre of the board — only made things fractionally better for
Carlsen. With plenty of time on his hands, Carlsen spent nearly 25
minutes to respond.
Thereafter, Anand did play with an extra pawn in the
middle game but never really held any advantage. Once Carlsen exerted
pressure from the kingside, Anand sensed trouble and sacrificed his
bishop for a pawn.
Though white looked objectively better placed to win,
Anand forced a position of his choice and, with it, kept the interest in
the contest alive.
As it turned out, Carlsen and Anand played one of the longest games in the history of the World Chess Championship (two more moves and it would have been the longest).
It was a strange endgame, in that Carlsen perhaps hung in there it to deplete Anand for the rest of the match — but there were points when Anand looked as if he might be able to do
Courtesy :- Website of Hindu and business insider, Australia
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