Anand-Gelfand, Tiebreaks: Game 2 A Dramatic Win For Anand
Oh my goodness, what a painful game for Boris Gelfand! He was in huge trouble in the opening (a repeat of game 10, but Viswanathan Anand varied with 8.Nxc6), but then outplayed the champion, took over the initiative and rejected drawing continuations fighting for more. He was in serious time trouble, however, and every time things started looking good for him an imprecise move would push him back.
This continued in waves, until at last the players reached an ending where Anand had rook, knight and b-pawn against rook and light-squared bishop. Black's king was in front of the pawn and so from a purely theoretical standpoint the game was drawn. Had Gelfand a decent amount of time, it would have been an easy draw. But he was well under a minute and living off the (small) increment, and eventually blundered, allowing Anand to reach a won rook ending.
So game 3 is really Gelfand's last chance, as it's extremely unlikely that he can defeat Anand with Black in game 4 if this one ends in a draw. We'll see!
Reader Comments (1)
Anand actually varied with 7.d4