Drawish Overture in Grünfeld Indian Defence

The battle between Anand and Gelfand started this afternoon at 15:00 of Moscow time.
Anand playing White opted for 1.d4 and after 1...Nf6 2.c4 Gelfand first surprised not only Anand but also the commentators when played 2...g6.
Gruenfeld Indian was played and Anand, trying to surprise his opponent, played a move with very drawish reputation, 8.Bb5+. This move was a big surprise for Gelfand and those of you, who had been watching the match on-line, can confirm that Gelfand's facial expression spoke volumes.  Soon after game became quite interesting...







Draw in the first game is probably fair result. Both players surprised each other and commentators as well. GM Sergei Rublevsky and GM Ilia Smirin who commented in  Russian language channel for http://moscow2012.fide.com  mentioned that they had expected something like Queen's Gambit or Queen's Indian defence and definitely not Gruenfeld Indian Defence.
GM Konstantin Sakaev commenting for ChessPro.ru was of the same opinion...
British GM Nigel Short made a remark on English language channel that he knew almost nothing about this line ...
First game is over, half point for each player and the match will continue tomorrow at 12:00 GMT.