Carlsen: Everything went wrong from the beginning, I didn’t stand a chance

Vishy Anand won the third game of the match in Sochi

November 11, 2014 – The score is now tied 1.5-1.5. The third game of the World Chess Championship match between the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and former World Champion Vishwanathan Anand was played in the Main Media Center in Sochi on November, 11th. The Indian grandmaster had White.

Magnus Carlsen decided not to continue the opening discussion in the Gruenfeld defense and went for the classic Queen’s Gambit. The players entered a fashionable line, in which White develops his bishop to f4 and advances a pawn to c5 rather early. The former World Champion Alexander Khalifman commented the opening stage as follows:

– The 7…Nh5 is considered a safer continuation, planning to get rid of the dark-squared bishops. 7…с6, as Magnus played, allows a dangerous forced line: White sacrifices a pawn and creates a strong passed pawn on c7. I analyzed this variation extensively, and concluded that Black barely holds, often on various tactical tricks.

The first 16 or 17 moves were played very fast, but then the champion slowed down considerably. Clearly, he mixed up something and could not demonstrate his home analysis properly. The time on his clock was running out, and his position kept deteriorating. Anand played very precisely and obtained a significant advantage. His 26.Rc6! was particularly strong. After this move Carlsen started to worry about losing the game. He tried to complicate things, but Anand avoided all the traps and converted his advantage into a full point. This is a first victory of Anand against Carlsen in a classical game in the last four years.

Peter Svidler shared his thoughts about this game:

– Vishy got an advantage and very accurately turned it into a victory. It was noticeable that he tried hard not to rush things and not to look at the clock at all. A very important victory by Anand! The match basically starts over.

– Everything went wrong from the beginning, I didn’t stand a chance, – said the World Champion at the press-conference. – But the match goes on, and I’ll do my best in the next games. The today’s loss in my own fault.

The match score is now tied – 1.5-1.5. The fourth game is played on Wednesday, November 12th, the World Champion has White.

The World Chess Championship match consists of 12 games with a classical time control: 120 minutes for 40 moves, then 60 minutes for 20 moves, and then 15 minutes plus 30 second per move until the end of the game. If the match is tied, a tie-break will be played on November 27th.

The 2014 Chess Championship match between incumbent champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Vishy Anand will take place between November 7 and 28 in Sochi, Russia. The World Chess Championship is the most followed event in the world of chess. There are about 600 million chess players all over the world, with such well-known enthusiasts as Sergey Brin, George Soros, Bill Gates and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Tickets for the match can be booked at sochi2014.fide.com.

For more information:
Masha Kunica
Media, World Chess Championship
media@agonlimited.com