It would be interesting to know what’s on Gelfand’s mind

Anand, Gelfand play fourth draw in a row in World Chess Championship
Hari Hara Nandanan, TNN | May 15, 2012, 08.47PM IST

CHENNAI: Four games and four draws. The World Chess Championship contest is developing into an intriguing struggle. The fourth game, drawn after 34 moves, looked like a draw right from the opening but challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel tried to infuse life into it when the game seemed to have reached a dead end.

For World champion Viswanathan Anand, the draw with black on Tuesday was a welcome result as the 12-game series at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow is nicely poised at two-all and he will have white in the fifth game on Wednesday after a day’s rest.

“Four draws. The match is just developing. We are just probing each other,” Anand said at a press conference after the game.

The players almost copied their second game (Slav Defence) till move 10 when Gelfand deviated. But four moves later the action in the centre got intense, leading to a flurry of exchanges. “This game won’t be exciting. The pawns in the centre have been exchanged and this won’t be like the third game, even if it ends in a draw,” commented Jan Timman, challenger to Anatoly Karpov in the 1993 WCC match.

However, Gelfand gave the impression that he had something up his sleeve. After Anand’s rook move, the Israeli buried his head in his hands and paused for almost 10 minutes. Former World women’s champion Zsuzsa Polgar found Gelfand’s response unusual and posted on twitter. “It would be interesting to know what’s on Gelfand’s mind. Forgot his preparation? Trying to fake Anand out? Why is he taking a lot of time?” Anand gave his bishop for the knight and in the process conceded the bisop pair to his rival.

The Israeli kept a tiny edge and at the same time he did not push for a win because the advantage was insignificant and he did not want to stretch the position.

Yet, Gelfand tried to make some headway with his bishop in the open position but Anand found the correct move to stop him. “Optically, white is better in that position but my pieces are not well coordinated,” said Gelfand.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com