The Hindu : Sport : Kramnik stays alive with a win

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Kramnik stays alive with a win

Rakesh Rao

Anand needs only a draw in either of the two remaining games

BONN: “Let’s put it this way. My chances have improved. I am happy I get to play one more game. It can play normal chess. At least, I am not under pressure from the opening in the last few games. I’ll to play create chances and try to use them. It’s better for me not to think about my chances. They are still less than 50 per cent.”

The words from a victorious Vladimir Kramnik reflected his optimistic but highly realistic approach as the best-of-12-game World chess championship match heads for an exciting climax here.

After pushing Viswanathan Anand to the brink of defeat in the drawn ninth game late on Sunday, a resurgent Kramnik won handsomely in just 29 moves on Monday.

Anand still leads 6-4 and needs only a draw from the remaining two games to retain the title.

Battling odds

The first victory for the challenger ensured the battle for the world chess title would resume on Wednesday, when Anand plays white in the 11th game. Kramnik, who has never won with black pieces against Anand in the classical time-format, needs to break the jinx in order to stay alive in the contest.

Over the past two drawn games, Kramnik had succeeded in making Anand look increasingly vulnerable. The Russian looked better throughout the eighth game and almost broke Anand’s stubborn resistance in the ninth.

Finally, enlarging his advantage with every passing move in the 10th game, Kramnik forced Anand on the defensive and squeezed out an overwhelming victory.

Gaining confidence

So far, in the second half of the match, Kramnik has been gaining confidence by getting into the kind of positions he loves to exploit. On Monday, in Nizmo-Indian, the game reached a position not seen at the highest level in 22 years since Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov battled five times in their much-followed clashes.

Kramnik, playing white, uncorked a new move on the 18th turn and left Anand thinking for long.

Contrary to Anand’s reputation built on the speed of his thoughts, the champion fell way behind on time. At one stage, Anand had consumed 104 minutes before making the 25th move while Kramnik has taken only 59.

It was clear that Anand could not solve the problems posed by his challenger. The position that looked balanced until the middle game, deteriorated rapidly for Anand. It was just a matter of time before Anand resigned.

Surprise move

Reflecting on the game, a dejected Anand described Kramnik’s new move as a “tricky” one. “It is not clear where black has to place his pieces. Later, I just missed something. I was clearly worse but I am really not sure what I did wrong,” he said.

Kramnik said: “It was a tricky game with lots of nuances. It is very difficult to understand even for top chess players. It was very surprising to me also that I did not do anything special and the position was already winning.”

The dominating victory has taken Kramnik’s confidence to a new high. It remains to be seen whether the manner of defeat has alarmingly dented Anand’s self-belief.

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