The 2012 World Championship Match: Game 3 A Hard-Fought Draw
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:05PM We're still waiting for one player or the other to draw first blood in the 2012 World Chess Championship, but we're getting closer! World Champion Viswanathan Anand certainly had the upper hand today against Boris Gelfand, and may have been winning - I'm still trying to determine this. What is clear is that he was close, and Gelfand had to sweat until very near the end.
Anand met Gelfand's Gruenfeld - or at least, the threat of a Gruenfeld - with 3.f3, and after 3...d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nb6 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.Be3 0-0 8.Qd2 Gelfand chose 8...e5. It's a major move, but it's less common than 8...Nc6 and might have come as a slight surprise to Anand. From there the players followed the main lines at every juncture through Black's 15th move, and then White played the rare 16.Ka1. White's score with the more usual 16.d6 was a 6-0 whitewash, but without any recent games featuring elite pairings.
Anand's move also kept the burden on Black. Gelfand sacrificed a pawn for play, but it wasn't clear that his activity was enough to make up for the dangerous, extra, passed pawn on d6. White's last chance to perhaps get (or more precisely, keep) something substantial came on move 34. 34.d7 looked dangerous, and while there are various improvements for both sides in the line Gelfand offered at the post-game presser, I'm not yet sure that Black can survive. At a minimum, it was a lot more dangerous for Black than the move in the game, which was 34.Rc7. After 34...Re8 Anand played 35.Rh1, allowing Gelfand to force perpetual, so the draw was agreed a couple of moves later.
For subscribers (non-subscribers can still sign up), the analysis and video will be sent later tonight. Stay tuned!
Reader Comments (4)
DM,
Just regarding my previous post (on the WCC game 2 thread) RE: art doco during the feed.
Did you watch the game 3 with Jan Timman?
Im not exaggerating the art/museum doco was at least 20min, Im sure it was longer.
Then they had the other 5minute adds appended.
I dont know of any sporting event, (free to air or pay per view) or any event for that matter that has such long ads.
Maybe at the cinema (but they put it before the movie, so you can skip it if you wish)
Why dont they run the museum doco when the games arent on? or during the openning/closing ceremonies.
It was really a ridiculous length. I was watching the games on another server, and everyone was commenting on it and leaving the feed.
"Now we interrupt the ads for some chess commentry"
The whole post analysis is a unprofessional as well.
They put a 5min ad right when they started and the translation is always interrupting the players and the players the translator.
[DM: I watched, off and on. There were two different clips early on in the broadcast which together may have gone 20 minutes. It was a long stretch, but there were no similarly long stretches later on, just the usual quick ads for the bank and such. Finally, even if the translator could do a better job, this is hardly the fault of FIDE.]
Over at chess vibes, one commenter posted http://www.chessvibes.com/comment/72218#comment-72218 :
"In the press conference, they analyzed a nice line that at the end with a rook sac and queen with check. This was 34.d7 Rcc2 35.Rc4 Rb2+ 36.Kc1 Rxa2 37.Rc8 Rf2 (Threatening mate on f1 or a1) 38. Re6+! Kf7 39.Rf6!! wins. So Vishy had not seen this resource and hence dint play 34.d7. A pity. But a nice fighting game :)
"
It is worth pointing out that one of those 6 whites wins after 16. d6 was by none other than Anand's second: GM Peter Heine Nielsen.
[DM: I did - in the subscription analysis. :)]
I doubt Gelfand sweated much. He made his moves lightning quick (ala Aronian) and walked away after every move most of the match. I think there is some psychological battle going on because I have never seen him play like this. It makes me uncomfortable if my opponent keeps on walking away after every move. In fact Anand was in a bit of time trouble near the end; something quite uncommon for him which could be due to Gelfand's antics.
[DM: Gelfand moved quickly at first because he was well-prepared, but by the end he was down to 10 minutes. Besides, it's clear that he was in trouble, and he's strong enough to know that the position was dicey even if he didn't know for sure that Anand had a win.]