In Germany, with Viswanathan Anand leading the match already at 6-to-3 after Game 9, the match was expected to be decided in his favor with three more games to play and needing only a draw in the next game. But Vladimir Kramnik still managed to draw blood at Game 10. Yet in Game 11, Kramnik settled for a draw, letting go of his reach for the crown.
Anand the King
And Anand the King was crowned the world champion.
It was a game of almost unbearable tension. Anand switched to 1.e4, Vladimir Kramnik went for do-or-die complications, Anand obliged, and for a couple of hours nobody knew what would happen. In the end, Vishy Anand prevailed, got a slightly better position and Vladimir Kramnik offered a draw. Anand remains World Champion.
WCC R11: Fighting draw, Anand wins World Championship by 6.5:4.5.
Download all the games of the match.
World chess chammpionship 2008 Round 6: Anand wins again, score now 4.5:1.5. He’s now two points behind to retaining the title – i.e., 4 draws. I would have expected Kramnik to at least win a game from this match, but from how it’s going–nevermind.
Viswanathan Anand, the defending champion, draws the first blood with black on the 3rd game of the World Chess Championship yesterday against the challenger, Vladimir Kramnik. This was after the first two games were agreed two by the two players.
It seems that in this match, players don’t recognize the dangers of the failure to castle. They just seem like to complicate things, to the delightment of the fans!
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The board is arranged at the starting position. Everything seems ready for the World Championship. Who will reign as the king of chess? Watch out for that as the World Championship 2008 unfolds tomorrow in Germany.
I’ll go for Vladimir Kramnik to win this match…
The match will be a best of 12 games. Players score 1 point for a win and half a point for a draw. Time control will be 120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The match will end as soon as any player scores 6.5 points.
If, after 12 games, the score is equal, a tie-break of four rapid games will be played. Time control for these games will be 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. In case of equal scores two additional blitz games will be played (5 minutes plus 10 seconds per move). If these games do not decide the winner, a decisive Armageddon game will be played (6 minutes for white, 5 minutes for black, black declared champion in case of a draw). There will be a new drawing of colours before rapid games, as well as before blitz games and an Armageddon game.
World Chess Championship 2008
Official Website
I find a head-to-head match-up like this more exciting than a round-robin (e.g., the World Chess Championship 2007) for a world chess championship. In the former, you’ll have the opportunity to witness the rush of blood as players hammer each other on a round per round mental combat. Get yourself marveled at how each player switch strategy in the middle of the match to accommodate the outpouring pressure. In the latter, oftentimes you’ll just wait and see till the last round who has the nearest reach to the crown.
A round-robin world championship will be just like a boxing match, with eight players inside a ring at the same time. The last man standing will be the world champion. In chess, most likely you’ll just wait and see by the end of the show who will come out victorious. But in boxing, hey, this is pretty exciting!
