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Anand still leads Topalov
World champion Viswanathan Anand survived a scare from Veselin Topalov and settled for a draw in a hard-fought game of the seventh match of the World Chess Championship here.
World champion Viswanathan Anand survived a scare from Veselin Topalov and settled for a draw in a hard-fought game of the seventh match of the World Chess Championship here.
Anand had to stave off a stiff challenge from Topalov, who prepared a brilliant new idea to combat the Indian in the Catalan opening yesterday.
The Game was evenly poised for a long time but Anand had to do most of the thinking in the first part of the game. It was effectively the toughest game for Anand, since his loss in the opener, as Topalov came up with some remarkable manoeuvres to keep the Indian in check. Topalov’s gameplan was simple and at the same time effective after he sacrificed a piece early in the middle game only for a positional compensation.
The new idea was in fact astonishing, as Anand found. Up a piece, and trying to find adequate compensation for his opponent, Anand could have felt more than once that he was winning but Topalov’s moves kept him tied down.
A just indication was the fact that around the 20th move, Anand had less than an hour on his clock to make the remaining 20 moves while Topalov had just consumed three minutes on his clock. While to some it might have meant a defeat, Anand managed to keep him at bay.
Most experts felt Topalov’s idea was good, but probably only good enough for a draw.
It took the players 58 moves to reach the most exciting draw of the match so far.
