An unexamined life is not worth living.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Anand – Topalov tied at 4-4

The World Championship match is very intense and there are a lot of sources covering it. I am enjoying video reviews from Sergei Shipov (in Russian) at http://www.crestbook.com/; he has been joined by Garry Kasparov during analysis for the last couple of games.

Not all websites, however, provide equally deep coverage; the main page of The Week in Chess as of this morning sounded somewhat superficial when describing game 8:

Anand got a completely drawn position and then played 54...Bc6??? which lost almost instantly and he resigned a couple of moves later. In contrast to game 7 both players played poorly. Anand's opening was bad, Topalov didn't press very well and certainly didn't cause Anand's shocking blunder at the end. All very odd.

Is it possible to get cause and effect in chess any more wrong than that? Has any world championship match been more intense than this one? There are no short draws, Topalov is playing in every game till there are kings on the board, and is pressing against Anand with his opening preparation as well. It is pretty clear that exhaustion is mounting and this why Anand made the blunder that he made in game 8. There are still 4 exciting games left in this match, so we’ll have to see what happens next, while today is rest day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hit Counter