World Championship, Game 11: One More Draw; Match Tied With A Game Left
This was Boris Gelfand's last chance to make something happen with the white pieces, but while he had been achieving success in his two previous white games he didn't get anything this time. Champion Viswanathan Anand varied from game 9 with the rare 8...Bd7, which came as a big surprise to Gelfand, who spent 38 minutes on his reply. After 9.a3 Ba5 10.Qe2 Bc6 11.Rd1 Anand produced the novelty 11...Bxc3, and a few moves later the players reached a middlegame where White's hanging pawns were under serious pressure. Given the time situation, Gelfand found it prudent to look for a safe way out, and he succeeded in doing so. The game only went 24 moves, but the challenger was already down to 14 minutes for the next 16 moves.
So the final classical game of the 2012 World Championship match will come on Monday, after another rest day, and if that game is also drawn they'll go to rapid and (if necessary) blitz tiebreaks on Wednesday, after another rest day.
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Reader Comments (3)
I suppose everyone already knows this, but Peter Svidler is an excellent commentator. He doesn't exactly struggle with the English language, does he?
(Too bad he wasn't playing.)
[DM: He'll have his chance next time around. By the way, why "too bad"? Svidler is another player who doesn't exactly hate draws.]
"Too bad" because anything would be better than this.
[DM: Enough; it isn't necessary to reiterate the point every game!]
Interesting that Anand can pull out a surprise on Game 11. I'm hopeful/expectant that it means he can pull out another surprise on Game 12, and win in regulation. I'll be very disappointed if it goes to rapids, as I'm a traditionalist who thinks the champion should actually be beaten.
I must confess I was disappointed that Gelfand made it through, when he is clearly no where near the top of the chess tree at the moment (Carlsen, Aronion & Kramnik all being a level above). He's done really well though - is that because Anand is playing poorly or Gelfand playing great? To my mind, Gelfand was always solid, meaning he's hard to beat. He rarely tops tournaments - where the emphasis is on winning rather than losing. Its noteworthy that he qualified via the knockout Chess World Cup, and then won the knockout Candidates to get to this point.