A Chess World Championship Match starting this week.

[Graendals favourite]

Now there is the opportunity to get incredibly excited over chess, as the world championship is on hold at a match starting later this week in Sofia, Bulgaria. World champion Viswanathan Anand of India is challenged by Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in a match of 12 games. This is a very close call.

 

Both of these are attacking players, enjoying sharp play in complicated positions. Anand perhaps as a more flexible style, while Topalov has the sharper style. Of course both players are universally strong. In a match, though, as in chess usually, it is the practical struggle that will likely clinch the issue, whomever better deals with incredible pressure and plays the best moves is likely to triumph. Chess is a hard game, since to win against good opponents, it is necessarily to win thrice, in the opening, middle game and the end game, while losing can take only one move, any inaccuracy may lose the advantage gained and any outright mistake the game.

 

The first battle is already over, during the last half year the opponents will have been preparing intensely for this match, while keeping any such activity as secret as possible. The last time, Anand gained an upper hand against Kramnik with the superior opening preparation, and this he did largely by building a complete new opening repertoire with the white peaces around 1. d4, when before that he had almost exclusively through his career opened with 1. e4. Opening preparation is important because whoever wins the opening struggle will be the one looking for a win in the middle game, though with the black pieces one may consider the opening a success if it results in an even position in the middle game: in a match one needs to win more games than the opponent, so in such a high level and tight match, a natural strategy is to strive to use the first move advantage to effect wins. A successful opening preparations might allow a player to have studied the position occurring at length already at home. At this point, it is impossible to predict what openings will be played.

 

Play begins on saturday*, more news is for instance on the official site, and various reports for instance here.

 

*Schedule delayed one day.

[Graendals favourite]

And today it begins, within the hour....

[Graendals favourite]

As I said is possible, with one move, Anand destroyed his position in game 1. Before  23... Kf7, the situation was completely open, but now one move later he must look for ways to complicate black's win and so perhaps have a chance to draw this game.

[Graendals favourite]

Ok, yesterday's game was very difficult to understand. Unlike game 1, which was decided by a mistake in a tactical position, this one was decided by inaccuracies in a , what can I say, complicated position. White, Anand, strove to put black, Topalov, in a position, where, though white had to play very accurately and actively, black had to defend very patiently. Black's patience broke out and he started making mistakes, and eventually white had an easy win.

 

This evidentialy is the key to the match: either is an attacking player, but can Topalov kill Anand more, or can Anand out-patience Topalov. 10 games to go.

[Graendals favourite]

And Anand retained his title in a very even and exciting match! In the last game, he won with black, next year a new challenger is to be found, the year after that a new WC match.

 

The WC line is still: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botwinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand.

[shinerfan]

Close to twenty years ago I seriously studied chess theory and history for a couple of years. As I'm a bit of a drinker, Alekhine's loss of the title by actually passing out at the table, then recapturing it a year later and holding it until his death so impressed me that even today 1... Nf3 is my favored response to 1.E4. I never had any real flair for the game; I'm competent in openings and endgames but I tend to try to force exchanges in the middle game, preferring to play an equal or better endgame to looking for beautiful mates. Against strong players this results in lots of draws of course.

[Senexx]

as do I

[Graendals favourite]

Myself I play e6 against both e4 and d4, french or dutch solely. Lately I've been working on the Vienna, to replace Ruy Lopez as an alternative to the King's gambit.

 

I like positions where there is a chance for abrupt wins, though in general I'm satisfied by getting a better endgame. Kind of patiently hazardous game.

[Graendals favourite]

Well, it occurred to me I might mention this interview of Karpov here, as I think it might be interesting to Americans also: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6465