Anyone else following this? The first three games were draws and game 4 is going on right now. Topalov(black) is a pawn up and his queen-side pawns are looking rather threatening at least to my non-expert eyes. Is this a winning position for him?
Is there any website with live commentary preferably in text?
A good place to start in the hunt for good “live” coverage may be The Week in Chess It’s been a while since I tried to follow games in progress online, but when I did such a thing, it was quite exciting. Much more fun that playing through the games after they’ve been completed and analyzed to death.
The game has changed rather dramatically with Anand sacrificing a knight for two pawns. The website you linked to seems to think he has the advantage.
And Anand wins with a terrific king-side attack. Incidentally I was wrong about the three draws; game 3 was a draw but they won a game each before that. Anyway it’s 2.5-1.5 to Anand now.
Here are a few sites you can have a look at:
ChessGames.com
The Chess Mind (blog)
ChessOK (live games with engine analysis)
From the first four games, Anand seems to be in very good form, except for the strange mistake in the 1st game. However, Topalov is known for starting slowly and finishing strong, so he will probably still have his chances.
The plot is thickening as the the number of pre-tiebreak games dwindles!
If Anand ends up losing, he’s really going to be kicking himself. He had game 8 fairly easily drawn and gave it away, and today he had game 9 won a couple times and couldn’t finish Topalov off.
How many games are they playing total?
12 games total, and the match is currently tied with 2 wins each and 5 draws. Topalov has white in games 10 and 12, which is an advantage for him. However, if the match is still tied at that point, they play rapid games as a tiebreaker, and Anand is one of the great rapid players of all time.
However, the pressure and exhaustion of a championship match can cause weird things to happen, so it’s hard to make predictions.
A draw in game 11 sets up the final game nicely with Topalov playing white. If the match is still drawn it goes to rapid games where as mentioned Anand has the edge.
Will Anand play for a draw now or go all for the win?
I think Anand is the type of player to take what he can get. I doubt he’ll press for the win with the black pieces. I expect to see the Catalan coming up again when Anand gets White.
BTW, in case anyone didn’t notice my chess thread here, sign up soon so we can start the tournament.
Anand isn’t in a position where he needs to play for a win. He has to like his chances in the rapid tiebreaks. The thing is though that Topalov may feel a need to play aggressively with white in the last game, and the game may become quite doule-edged. Anand would certainly play for a win in such a situation.
Topalov cannot play for a draw (even if whites rarely do). Anand will most surely win in tiebreaks (or so conventional wisdom says), so he has to be aggresive.
Question from the far-less-than-average level player: What opening do you think will Toplaov be using?
I’ll guess Topalov will play d4, and they will go into a Grunfeld as in games 1 and 10. It really is just a guess though. There’s any number of possibilities.
Queen’s Gambit Declined, Lasker Variation…who could have called that one? I can’t recall seeing that in a top-flight game in a long time.
And it’s over. Topalov blunders into allowing Anand a formidable kingside attack which leads to an easy win. It’s ironic that while it’s Anand who has been more shaky and perhaps tired towards the end of the match it was Topalov who lost his nerve in the final game.
Great! Congratulations to Anand for a well-deserved victory.
And I’m no fan of Topalov, but I have to commend him for his resolve and match strategy. All exciting games in this match, many of which would likely have been agreed drawn in other WC matches. Compare against Kramnik-Leko, for example.
There is a very interesting interview with Anand on Chessbase regarding the match: Part 1, Part 2.
Anand revealed that he received help and advice during the match from Kramnik (the previous World Champion), and Kasparov (the champ prior to Kramnik, and regarded by many as the top player of all time) and had a training session with Magnus Carlsen (#1 rated player in the world). This is really unprecedented, especially considering that Carlsen and Kramnik are both currently top 5 players, who often compete with Anand in tournaments. I think this really shows how Anand and Topalov are regarded by the other top players.
Also it is now known that Topalov was given use of an 8792-processor computer along with the unreleased latest version of Rybka, the top chess analysis program, for use in his analysis for the match.