2012 World Championship, Game 4: A Peaceful Draw
The World Championship is tied 2-2 heading into the second rest day after champion Viswanathan Anand again used the Chebanenko Slav to achieve a fairly comfortable draw with the black pieces. Boris Gelfand varied from game 2 when he chose 10.Qc2 rather than 10.Rc1, but it was Anand who played the first novelty with 16...Re8. Gelfand used plenty of time the rest of the way, trying to eke out a slight advantage, but Anand's accurate 23...Bc5 and 24...Bd4 kept him safe. Black continued to defend well, and with no targets for White in the rook and bishop vs. rook and knight ending the players called it a day.
Game 5 will be Thursday; meanwhile, subscribers will receive my analysis and video summary later today.
Reader Comments (5)
You should get a medal for watching this snooze fest. So perhaps the quality is slightly higher than the US Championship, but if quality trumped drama we might as well have the world championship played between Houdini and Rybka.
My proposal - every opening move is assigned a certain value, and the participants are given an initial number of points to spend on the opening move (only White pays). So if you want to play d4 it'll cost 10 points (because it is so boring), e4 only costs 5 points, Nf3 is 4 points, c4 is 3 points, g4 is free, etc. Make sure they only get enough points that they can't buy d4 every game (and give them a couple points for winning so they can build up points if they really want to buy d4 and draw for the last round).
[DM: Someone who is willing to allow the Najdorf Sicilian is less of a fighter than someone who plays the English? And 1.d4, which often turns into a sharp Semi-Slav or Gruenfeld, is more boring than 1.e4, which often invites the Caro-Kann and Berlin? I think all of those openings can be interesting or dull, depending on who's playing, how hard they try and how much the spectator understands. But attempts to "fix" the game almost invariably create something far worse than the problem.]
The end of classical chess??
[DM: Yawn. Any time a couple of relatively risk-averse top players string a few draws together some prophet of doom bemoans the death of chess. Computers have been way better than top GMs for years now, but that didn't prevent the Anand-Kramnik and Anand-Topalov matches from being pretty bloody, and it doesn't stop guys like Carlsen and Aronian from racking up lots of wins whenever they play. And once you drop into the low 2700s they seem to make no difference whatsoever; those guys knock each other's blocks off like rock-em sock-em robots. Even computer-computer matches still have plenty of decisive games.
The "problem" here is that you have two solid, classical, middle-aged and somewhat risk-averse players in a high-pressure situation. (And let's add that they're both in mediocre physical shape and have the further drain on their energy and motivation of being new parents.) So are there likely to be more draws than usual? As my generation so eloquently put it when we were kids: Duh!]
Agreed. I can't endorse the "end of classical chess" conclusion either. It's an exaggeration.
I do note, however, that my comment here is looking downright prescient.
[DM: But I still maintain my point, too. Gelfand is playing normal chess, and with Black is playing lively openings. (Today too - if Anand had played 10...Nb4 it would have been extremely sharp. It's not Gelfand's fault that Anand had found a way to kill the variation.) It's just that except for game 3, neither player is getting much to use, and even when they have a little they don't try.]
Round 7 live commentary (Naiditsch) : "it is a clear sign, that Anand wants to play this game for a win, if possible. What is Gelfand going to do?! Try to go into the big battle after 16.Bxf6 gxf6 or to play the very safe 16.Bg3 and probably we will see another short draw?"
Guess what? He played 16.Bg3.
"Gelfand continues his match strategy: no chances for me and no chances for you games... pity for us. I guess in case of 16.Bxf6 we would have seen a lot of action."
"17.Qe2 quickly played by White - Gelfand continues avoiding any kind of complications... "
Granted, this game isn't over, but . . .
Break out the small electric shocks!
[DM: Interesting - where is Naiditsch commenting? 16.Bxf6 is interesting and unclear, but White can at least enjoy this position - it's not quite "no chances for me", in my opinion. Maybe not many chances, but Gelfand can bother him for a couple of hours.]
Naiditsch was commenting at http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/. An unimpressive game from Anand (game 7). Ditto Gelfand game 8. Not much of a match, say I.