Anand-Gelfand: Another Battle in the Grünfeld Indian

After the day of break both contestants attained their positions at the gaming table. Anand started with White pieces and everybody was eager to know how he would cope with Grünfeld Indian Defence which was employed by Boris Gelfand in the first game and was very likely a big surprise for Anand. And it has happened. Gelfand without hesitation showed his willingness to play his favourite defence again. He did not prepared this opening just for one single game...

Salo Flohr (1908-1983)

Then Anand employed bit unusual move 3.f3, which was according to GM Sergei Zagrebelny (ChessPro.ru) played first time by Salo Flohr in 1929 (!!!), and finally he launched the sortie h4-h5 and opened h-file so the position could remind the Sicilian Dragon a bit. The game became rather sharp, but both players followed known theory till the move 16. when Gelfand employed a novelty, 16...e4.

Russian Channel Commentators: V. Gunina, I. Smirin and D. Jakovlenko

GM Ilia Smirin, who commented the game for Russian Channel on http://moscow2012.fide.com/ together with GM Dmitrij Jakovlenko and WGM Valentina Gunina, was of opinion that Gelfand bit underestimated the Anand's answer 17.Bd4.

Playing his move 24, Gelfand did not find the  best move which probably was perhaps 24...Nb6 and Anand gained the edge. However, Anand, who became running out of time, which is completely uncharacteristic of him, finally missed the way how to play for win. Gelfand found the way how to make  draw in the worse position.
Another interesting draw in combative spirit where both Kings were under the fire!
The match will continue tomorrow by the game 4.