Win or lose, take chances

Win or lose, take chances
Hari Hara Nandanan, TNN | Dec 9, 2011, 08.25AM IST

CHENNAI: The law of inertia seems to have worked against World Champion Viswanathan Anand. After 11 consecutive draws, the world champion thought he would break the deadlock when he came across a lively opening and an opponent who was ready to take chances.

The result of the fourth-round game against Hikaru Nakamura of US was heart-breaking for Anand, who lost what looked like a won position. With a safety-first approach that would have probably helped him retain his 2800-Elo rating and give no clue to his World championship opponent next year Boris Gelfand of Israel about his preparation, Anand got into a rut in the Tal tournament and initially in London too.

And when the opposition sensed that Anand was already in his preparatory shell, they did not have to anything exceptional, except play for a draw and force the Indian to take chances. However, Nakamura showed that he is not the run-of-the-mill super Grandmaster who is happy taking a draw against the world champion as he unleashed the Kings Indian at Anand.

“He’s not a 1.d4 player by nature. He has played 1.e4 for most of his career until the last couple of years I figured especially in a King’s Indian of which he has very little experience that he wouldn’t necessarily understand the structures as well as I did.”

If the chess world saw a trace of Gary Kasparov in this strong statement, it is because the former world champion has been working with the American of late. The position too did not justify Naka’s point of view as Anand got better in the opening and he lost his way only because he had taken chances as well like his opponent. Naka made his intention very clear and he could not care less if he won or lost.

“I attack and if it works, it works, if it doesn’t I lose horribly and look like an idiot. The onus is on Vishy to find all the right moves,” Nakamura said in twitter. With the win, Naka became the first American since Gata Kamsky in 19 years to defeat a reigning World Champion (Dortmund, 1992 against Kasparov). Naka reckoned this was the best win of his career.

“Probably overall it is, I’ve had some better quality wins, but certainly beating the world champion, the first time you do that is something special. It seems like every year I beat someone really good with black, last year I beat Kramnik for the first time with black now I beat Anand for the first time, maybe next year I’ll learn how to beat Magnus (Carlsen) with black. It’s the biggest win for the time being,” he said.

Interestingly, Naka had lost to Carlsen in the previous round and he was probably livid with himself that he took all the chances against Anand. Now that Anand himself is in the same position, will he go for blood or relapse to his habit of draws?

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com