Victory reaffirms Anand's dominance

Viswanathan Anand has retained the title of world chess champion comfortably. Anand accepted a draw offer from Vladimir Kramnik in the eleventh and final game of the match at Bonn. A draw was enough to clinch the title or else the Indian GM could have played on to try and win. The scheduled last game is unnecessary as Anand leads 6.5-4.5 in the Best-of-12 match.

Kramnik fought hard faced with the task of winning three in a row. The Russian GM won Game X with a commanding performance and sparked wild complications in Game XI. However, although both players went far beyond their preparation, the contours of the position were more up Anand’s street.

Kramnik adopted the Sicilian Najdorf, which he plays rarely and which Anand plays often with both colours. Anand playing white, pushed into an obscure sideline. On Move 12, Kramnik played a risky new idea smashing his own structure. Anand responded with a string of sharp, and it turned out, accurate queen moves.

Both players consumed huge quantities of time. By move 20, Anand was superior and black had few threats left. An exchange of queens led to an endgame where black is struggling. Although material was equal, white had a much superior pawn structure and a better set of minor pieces.

Kramnik offered the draw on move 24. By then, the challenger was down to 18 minutes for 16 moves. Anand had over 40 minutes left. Under normal circumstances, Anand would have played to extract the maximum.

This match victory conclusively reunifies the title. It sets the seal on Anand’s dominance in the past two years. The Indian GM became no:1 and won the Chess Oscar in 2007 when he took the world championship at Mexico. At the post-game conference, he said he “was relieved rather than happy” and paid fulsome tribute to his team of seconds including Peter Heine Nielsen, Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Radoslaw Wojtaszek.