Anand-Gelfand, Game 3: Another Tragedy For Gelfand
Someone will need to put Boris Gelfand on suicide watch if he doesn't manage to come back and win game 4. He completely outplayed Viswanathan Anand with the white pieces, and could have won a piece and the game with 26.Nxe4 fxe4 27.dxe5, when the bishop on b8 is lost. Black's central pawns aren't any real factor, as his king is too exposed for him to achieve any real counterplay.
That was bad enough, but the real tragedy came later. Anand achieved a comfortably drawing position, and at a certain point transposed to a drawn rook ending two pawns down. It was drawn, but only with precise play, and precise play was not what was produced. Gelfand missed a clear win, one that with even a full minute on his clock he'd have achieved without any trouble. (At least if I have the game score correct. I think I do, but it was hard to be sure. As for the ICC relay, it's complete nonsense at the end.)
He probably won't know what he missed until sometime later; for now, he probably just feels like he was close but without realizing how close. Now he must try to win game 4 with Black. It won't be easy, but there's no choice!
Reader Comments (3)
Hi Dennis
I think there was problem with the relay, as the rook endgame was drawn all along!
[DM: No, it wasn't. I have the correct game score (see the new post), and if you check you'll see that 51...Kf5? changed the evaluation to +-, 52.c6? changed it back to equal, 52...Ke6? was losing again, and then 61.h7?? allowed Black to draw when the win was not just there but finally straightforward. Gelfand just moved instantly when he didn't need to on that last one, and then when he finally stopped to think next move he found the correct and obvious idea, one move too late.]
My mistake, you're right. I was naively following the official game score... which hasn't been "corrected" yet. Anyway Rh7? features in both of them. It's a weird move, isn't it?
[DM: It's certainly a huge mistake, but I guess the idea was either to set up a Ra7 Rxh6 Ra6+ skewer or else to stop Black from putting his king on b7 and going for a Vancura sort of draw (though that wouldn't have worked in any case).
By the way, is there something I'm missing? You have "corrected" in quotation marks, which at least hints that you're uncertain about the version of the game score I've offered here. Watch the live feed for yourself and see if I've goofed something up.]
It may be (slight and dubious) consolation for Gelfand that, once again, the live commentator came up with a wrong assessment: In the classical 8th game, Leko and Nepomniachtchi had missed Anand's Qf2, this time Svidler didn't realize that the rook endgame was, at some stage, winning for white. While he did consider 61.Rh7 a strange move ("played for reasons only known to Gelfand"), even here he didn't realize or didn't say that this threw away the win which was otherwise there.
[DM: Svidler was in a difficult position. The relay had broken down, so he couldn't watch a monitor at his leisure. He also seemed to have so much faith in Anand that he didn't take too seriously the possibility that he might have misplayed the ending. And finally, I'll repeat what I said about Leko & Nepomniachtchi: it's easy to make mistakes, especially in circumstances where specific calculation is required, when one's mouth is in motion!]