Anand said no to draw offer

Anand and Kramnik draw in chess match’s game 7
The Associated Press
Published: October 23, 2008

BONN, Germany: Careful defense brought Russian challenger Vladimir Kramnik a draw against world chess champion Viswanathan Anand of India on Thursday in the seventh game of their championship match.

The draw means that Anand leads 5-2, maintaining his three-point advantage in the 12-game match.

While the draw moves Anand closer to retaining his title, it also stems a bad run for Kramnik, who had lost three of the last four games. He now has three Whites in the last five games with which to try to stage a comeback.

American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan praised Anand’s “dominating performance so far” and said there hasn’t yet been “a return of service” from Kramnik.

Seirawan said he thought Kramnik was “very fortunate. He made a few inaccuracies and was on the edge” of losing.

With Black, Kramnik chose the Slav Defense and the players followed the first playoff game between Kramnik and Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in their 2006 reunification match until Kramnik varied on move 15.

Anand called the line “interesting.” Kramnik said it was “maybe not the best choice” given his large deficit, but “it’s not so easy to get winning chances” with Black against 1.d4.

Kramnik’s 17th move, giving up his bishop for a knight, was new. Preserving the bishop was probably safer but, given his deficit, he had to unbalance the position.

Seirawan thought that Kramnik might have been hoping for a good-knight-versus-bad-bishop position. If so, he quickly got the opposite.

Anand rated his position “slightly better” because “Black’s knight is much weaker than White’s bishop.”

Kramnik exchanged queens on move 21 and offered a draw. He said afterward that he may have been “a little bit overoptimistic” in making the offer.

Anand said that the draw offer “surprised me a little” and that he declined it because “Black still has to make a few accurate moves.”

Here is the full article.