Match On! Gelfand Wins Game 7, Leads 4-3
After six less than scintillating draws, the 2012 World Chess Championship finally saw its first decisive result. Boris Gelfand defeated the champion, Viswanathan Anand, for the first time in a classical game since 1993(!), and has a 4-3 lead with five games to go.
Gelfand varied from his earlier games with 6.c5, as expected by this commentator, and at least as importantly, met 6...Nbd7 with the rare 7.Qc2. Anand did not seem well-prepared for this line, and burned plenty of time trying to solve the problem of his bad light-squared bishop. He never managed to do this, and already felt quite frustrated by his position when he lashed out with 23...g5. This was a clear error, and soon Gelfand's position wasn't just comfortable; it was winning. Anand found some neat tricks at the very end to make it exciting, but Gelfand was up to the challenge and created his own mating net before Black could finish weaving his.
Now the time for dull, bloodless draws is over. Will Anand manage to bounce back, as Garry Kasparov did against Anand himself back in 1995? There, in a 20-game title match, there were eight draws before Anand opened the first lead with a win in game 9. Kasparov promptly won games 10, 11, 13 and 14 on his way to a three point victory. So perhaps this loss will give Anand a feeling of freedom and a sense of increased motivation, and the match will come alive. Let's hope so!
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