With the courtesy of Blip
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Anand-Gelfand: Tie-Break 2½:1½ . Anand is New World Champion!
3.7 Tie-breaks 3.7.1.a If the scores are level after the regular twelve (12) games, after a new drawing of colours, four (4) tie-break games shall be played. The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds
after each move.
3.7.1.b All tie-break games shall be played according to the following:
1. Play is governed by the World Championship Technical Regulations (annex 1), which apply with the exceptions mentioned below in (2), (3) and (4).
2. The players do not need to record the moves. An arbiter shall record the moves.
3. The player who has the move may stop the clocks and consult the Arbiter’s score sheet and if his next move will produce a threefold repetition of position (according to Article 9.2a of the Technical Regulations), or the 50 moves rule (according to Article 9.3a of the Technical Regulations), he himself must write the intended move on the score sheet and claim the draw if he wants. A player can also claim a draw according to Articles 9.2b and 9.3b of the Technical Regulations. If the claim is found to be correct, the game is immediately ended as a draw.
If the claim is found to be incorrect, the Arbiter shall add three (3) minutes to the opponent’s remaining time and the game continues with the intended move in accordance with Article 4 of the Technical Regulations. A maximum of two (2) incorrect claims for a draw can be made by each player. If a player makes a third (3rd) incorrect claim, the arbiter shall declare the game lost for this player.
4. If a game has ended by resignation, checkmate, time loss, stalemate, triple repetition or any other of the ways described in Article 5 of the Technical Regulations, no claim for irregularities shall be accepted (irregularities include clock settings and all other described in Article 7 of the Technical Regulations).
3.7.2 If the scores are level after the games in Article 3.7.1a, then, after a new drawing of colours, a match of 2 games shall be played with a time control of 5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move. In case of a level score, another 2-game match will be played to determine a winner. If still there is no winner after 5 such matches (total 10 games), one sudden-death game will be played as described below in Article 3.7.3.
3.7.3 If the score is still level after five matches as described in Article 3.7.2, the players shall play a one sudden death game. The player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the colour. The player with the white pieces shall receive 5 minutes, the player with the black
pieces shall receive 4 minutes whereupon, after the 60th move, both players shall receive an increment of 3 seconds from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.
3.7.4 There shall be a pause of 10 minutes between all tie-break game, unless the Chief Arbiter decides otherwise.
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Vishy Anand won the tie-break 2½:1½ which means he retains the world champion title! Congratulations!
Long live the King!
Monday, 28 May 2012
Game 12 - Draw! Match Ends Up In Sudden Death
Anand this time chose for 5.d3 followed by 6.b3 met by Gelfand's novelty 6...d6. Then Anand decided for first sortie in the centre playing 7.e5 and in some lines he perhaps planned to sacrifice this pawn. When Gelfand placed his Knight on g6, Anand came up with second sortie 8.h4 and harassed the Knight which more or less forced Gelfand to take the pawn e5. Black's problem at this time became his pawn structure and mainly his light-squared Bishop docked on c8-square with unclear future. On the other hand, White plan was quite obvious, to manoeuvre his Knight on e4 a create pressure against c5-pawn.
In this moment Gelfand decided to return a pawn playing 10...c4. This move is difficult to assess but obviously Black wanted to get the Bishop in the game playing Ba6. Soon afterwards Queens were swapped on d5 which improved Black's pawn structure for the prize of pawn. However, Black completed development and his two Bishop and strong solid centre was enough to ensure some compensation for him.
Later Anand decided to exchange dark-squared Bishop which led not only to drawish-looking ending but also to equal position and no wonder draw was agreed in move 22.
So the match finished draw in classical chess. Tomorrow is day off and the battle will continue with tie-break on Wednesday.
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Saturday, 26 May 2012
Anand-Gelfand: Another Game, Another Draw. Current Score: 5½ - 5½
Well, so one game to go and the match is still even so there is a chance that we will not avoid of the tie-break!
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| Commentator GM Smirin, major sponsor of match - Andrei Filatov and ex-world champion GM Kramnik |
Friday, 25 May 2012
Grantham Chess Club: Annual General Meeting
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Anand Avoiding Open Sicilian Plays Rossolimo!
In game 10, Anand tried again 1.e4 and if anybody was hoping for Sveshnikov again he was wrong. Anand avoided Open Sicilian and went for Rossolimo line (3.Bb5), one of very solid "anti-Sicilians".
Gelfand first avoided all main lines connected with fianchettoing of dark-squared Bishop playing 3...e6 and after Anand's surprise 5.b3 (rather rare continuation), he countered by 5...e5 which is also very rare line in tournament practise and finally he came up with novelty 8...d5.
Despite that both players played rather quickly, it was obviously Gelfand who demonstrated his home preparation.
In interesting battle players exchanged the pieces and in simplified position it was Gelfand who offered draw first, but Vishy refused and continued playing.
However, several moves later he realised the futility of this battle and he offered draw himself which Gelfand accepted.
Score of the match is now 5:5, tomorrow is another rest day, so match will continue on Saturday.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Gelfand Gets Advantage, Anand Creates A Fortress. Match Is Even...
Gelfand, playing with White pieces, was faithful to his 1.d4. Anand came up this time with Nimzo-Indian Defence, on of the most solid openings for Black which was tested in world championship matches many times. For all we can just mention the match between Fischer and Spassky (40 years anniversary we are going to celebrate this year soon) when Fischer had employed this defence twice.
Both players reached a typical position with "Isolani" - an isolated queen's pawn, and the pawn structure was quickly transformed into "hanging" pawns. Interestingly enough, the tactical battle dominated to this struggle this time over strategical one and finally Gelfand achieved some material advantage when he created material imbalance getting Queen in return for Rook, Knight and Pawn.
Obviously in situation like this it was only White who could play for one of two possible results. Anand, however, created fortress which was impossible for Gelfand to penetrate and the game eventually ended up draw.
Another interesting game in fighting spirit.
Current score of match is 4½ - 4½.
Match will continue tomorrow by game 10.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Gelfand Commits Seppuku! Match Is Even Again
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| Seppuku |
After interesting 7th game of match between Anand and Gelfand everybody was curious what trumps Anand will draw in game 8.He came back to 1.d4 and perhaps intended to surprise Gelfand in Grünfeld defence. However, after normal moves 1...Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 (Anand's pet-line in this match) it was Gelfand who surprised his opponent by 3...c5! From now on the game became very unconventional and quite interesting. Gelfand's move 8...Bf6 was surprise not only for Anand but perhaps for everybody including the grandmasters on the commentator's posts. Svidler together with Smirin were of opinion that it is part of the home preparation, Konstantin Sakaev apparently did not like it, writing that this exchange of dark-squared Bishops is in favour of White. It is very difficult to say what really was a part of home prep and what was just sheer stroke of genius...
Anand successfully stabilized his position and after his mover 14 he could claim a small edge because of certain space advantage, but nothing more... It would have been ok if chess players had not been only human beings. I venture to say that Gelfand will never forget his move 14...Qf6. Why he chose this move and not one of two possible retreats of his Knight, it knows perhaps only Gelfand himself. But this is chess. After this move the Black position is definitely worse if not lost completely. Gelfand made two other moves but with the prospect of defending much worse position when White's attack can develop quite naturally, he decided to throw in the towel.
Rather tough disillusion after yesterday's ecstasy...
Current score is 4:4.
Tomorrow is another rest day so match will continue on Wednesday. Both players will have time to recover and we can look forward to seeing some new development.
Definitely we can agree with Karpov's statement that second half of this match will be more interesting than the first one.
Anatoly Karpov: "Big mistake of FIDE not to return Carlsen into WCh cycle."
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