GAME 3 AT THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH ENDS IN A DRAW. BORIS GELFAND ESCAPES DEFEAT.
The third game in the FIDE World Chess Championship match was played on 14 May in the Engineering Building at the State Tretyakov Gallery.
The contestants played a fairly rare and at the same time incisive variation of the Grünfeld Defence with opposite-side castling. It became obvious that this opening, which had effectively never been seen before in the Israeli grandmaster’s play, had been specially prepared for this match. Unlike the first game, Vishy Anand was ready for it and tried to refute Black’s formation with subtle play.
In the 14th move Boris Gelfand sacrificed a pawn in order to mobilise his pieces. It seemed that Black was entitled to count on seizing the initiative, but Viswanathan Anand managed to rebuff all his opponent’s threats with some precise moves and got some serious chances to win. In the 32nd move the chess players moved to a heavy piece ending in which White’s extra passed pawn was very dangerous. However, as the time control grew closer, in the 34th–35th moves the world champion played inaccurately, after which both of Black’s rooks penetrated to the second rank, and Gelfand was able to declare a perpetual check. The result of this tense game was a draw on the 37th move. The score for the match was again level – 1.5-1.5. The fourth game in the match will be played today, 15 May, with the challenger playing White.
The FIDE World Chess Championship match between the world champion Viswanathan Anand (India) and the challenger Boris Gelfand (Israel) will take place from 10 to 31 May 2012 in the Engineering Building of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Chess championship match will be taking place in one of the world’s biggest museums for the first time.
Organisers of the match are FIDE (the World Chess Federation) and the RCF (the Russian Chess Federation). Initiator of the idea of holding the match in Moscow and its sponsor is the Russian entrepreneur Andrei Filatov (joint owner of the N-Trans Group). Other sponsors of the contest include businessman Gennady Timchenko and the Ladoga charitable foundation, and also the NVisionGroup, Novatek and Almaz-Antei companies.
Contact information for journalists:
Mark Glukhovsky
Press Attaché for the Russian Chess Federation
at the World Championship Match
Gelfand was in no danger.