Tiebreak awaits

ALL EVEN IN CLASSICAL CHESS AS TIE-BREAK AWAITS

The twelfth game of the match for FIDE World Champion was played on 28 May at the State Tretyakov Gallery’s Engineering Building

In the final game of the match with classical time control, the opponents once again played the Rossolimo variation of the Sicilian Defence. Unlike the previous game when this system was used, the world champion managed to provide a surprise, sacrificing the pawn with e5 on the eighth move. Boris Gelfand thought long and hard before finding an interesting solution – on the tenth move he voluntarily returned the material and then sacrificed another pawn in order to reveal the position and activate his pieces. The challenger’s decision proved to be justified as he was well compensated. Anand agreed that he was lacking the sufficient resources to fight for an advantage, eased the situation in the centre, and on the twenty-second move the opponents agreed to a draw.

At the press conference, Boris Gelfand explained why he had spent so long on move 10…с4. The challenger said that moves 7.h4 and 10.Nd2 by White were simply excellent and made Black’s task “very difficult”. “I was trying to figure out the best way to play at that moment because, if you make one wrong decision, it may already be too late. I realised that I needed to activate my bishops at any cost.” Boris Gelfand also explained that, if White had refused to exchange queens after 12…Qd5, then Black would simply have exchanged the “bad” white-squared bishop on c4.

Viswanathan Anand confirmed that he wanted to surprise his opponent in the opening, which he was able to do. But he noted that the challenger responded very handily to this. He also said that 10…c4 was the right move to make, insofar as Black had to play quickly in order to avoid getting into a bad position. He wasn’t sure, however, if he should have gone for the continuation with an extra pawn, as Black was fully compensated with two bishops and open lines on the queenside.
When asked if he could have exploited his time advantage and continue the game, the World Champion explained that there weren’t enough pieces on the board to play for the win. “It’s very easy for Black to play after 22.Се7 Кре7, and I didn’t see any reason to continue the game.”
Both players said that they hadn’t considered what colours they would choose for Armageddon, if it should come down to that. They also could not remember the rapid chess score between the two.

Following the twelfth game, the score is equal at 6-6. According to the rules, the players must now play a tie-break: four games of rapid chess (25 minutes until the end plus 10 seconds per move). If they finish with a score of 2-2, a match of two blitz games will be played (5 minutes plus 3 seconds per move). If the score is still even, another match of two blitz games will be played (in total no more than 5 such matches). If the winner is not determined from these 10 games, the decisive Armageddon will be played.

The guests of honour on 28 May were the American art experts Bradley Bailey and Francis Naumann.

In the chess courtyard, grandmaster Sergei Karyakin played a game of multi-board chess with children. Sergei won nine victories, but one boy managed a draw in the game.

Player’s press conference and photos are available on the match’s official website: http://moscow2012.fide.com.

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