It was Magnus Carlsen’s turn to foil white’s push for victory, on Friday. The resultant draw in Game 10 of the World chess championship match in Sochi, Russia, brought the Norwegian within one point of retaining the World title.
He defended accurately with black pieces after challenger Viswanathan Anand had managed to get a dynamic position out of the opening.
Both players agreed that the 32-move game was “very interesting”, but it was Carlsen who managed gains. The champion got what he wanted, and left Anand clearly frustrated.
With two games to go, on Sunday and on Tuesday, Carlsen leads 5.5-4.5 in the race to 6.5 points. With both players getting to play white once each, Anand needs to stay undefeated in Game 11 to keep the match alive. Should he win and equalise the match-score, he will hold a slight advantage going into the final game with white pieces.
On the other hand, Carlsen, who plays white in Game 11, has a great chance to put Anand under enormous pressure. Should Anand crack, the match will be over.
“You just have to keep trying,” said Anand when asked about how he felt after drawing with white pieces. “It was an intense game, and he defended well.”
On Friday, the game saw Carlsen employ the Grunfeld Defence, a reprisal of his option from Game One; he had tried the Queen’s Gambit Declined in Games 3 and 8, though he moved to the Queen’s Indian in Game 5.
If there were any points for doing better in the opening phase, Anand clearly grabbed them. But he did not really get anything substantial to build on.
After Anand’s 14th move, the position was identical to the one in the game between Radoslaw Wojtaszek (one of Anand’s seconds) and Ruslan Ponomariov at the 2012 Karpov International tournament.
If the computer analysis favoured Anand’s position, it was mainly because Carlsen was not finding the moves of optimum strength as often as he does.
Anand did show signs of looking to maximise his miniscule advantage but Carlsen was equal to the challenge.
“My nerves were okay. I don’t know about the quality of play. Today’s was definitely a very interesting position to delve into. As a chess player, you like that,” said Carlsen after the game.
Anand brought some added pressure upon himself on account of time-management too. Perhaps, learning from the bitter experiences of Game 6, Anand was taking his time to plan his moves, and ended up falling behind Carlsen on the clock.
Once the queens were off the board on the 18th move, Carlsen took 33 minutes to find the accurate continuation on the 19th move. But he was always way ahead of Anand on time.
The simplification of the position, in a way, helped Anand deal with the paucity of time. After making his 25th move, Anand had 21 minutes for 15 moves to safely negotiate the first time-control (of 40 moves in 120 minutes). Thereafter, perhaps forced by the constraint of time, Anand chose to go for a tactical shot.
What followed was a sequence of moves that saw the exchange of the last two minor pieces — white bishop and black knight — but not before Anand ‘queened’ a pawn.
A move later, the players signed the peace treaty.
Though happy with the draw, Carlsen said: “I didn’t necessarily feel that I had control (of the game). He is a very good player and is very well prepared.”
Anand said: “I know I’ll have to play (well in the next two games). That’s all. We know the score. We know the situation. I’m still there.”
