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World Chess Championship game 2: 'Whiz kid' Magnus Carlsen draws first blood, beats Viswanathan Anand
Defending champion Magnus Carlsen outplayed Viswanathan Anand on Sunday in 35 moves in the second game of the World Chess Championship being held at Sochi.
Defending champion Magnus Carlsen outplayed Viswanathan Anand on Sunday in 35 moves in the second game of the World Chess Championship being held at Sochi.
23-year-old Carlsen started with white and tore down Anand's Berlin defence by swinging the game first to queen's side and from there on to the king's side.
Carlsen opened with the Ruy Lopez line with e4 to which Anand replied with e5.
On the seventh move, the champion went in for an early trading of his white bishop for black's queen side knight, in the process disturbed Anand's pawn structure.
Game board
Here is the game board at the end of game 2. You can press the arrow buttons and play the game from scratch.
On move 11, Carlsen played a4 with an intention of creating a weak queen rook pawn for Anand. Undeterred Anand played a5 which in turn opened up the files for his two bishops.
In his next move, Carlsen traded his knight for Anand's black bishop. This shifted the play to the centre of the board.
He then brought his queen side rook into play moving it a3 to be ready for an attack. At this position, all his pieces were ready for action with the field clear for forward movement and ready for a long grind.
Though there was no major threat for Anand's king, the piece mobilisation was a psychological attack.
At the end of the 22nd move, both players had two rooks, queen and seven pawns.
By this time, Carlsen had moved in to an active position, while Anand seemed to have lost the plot.
Anand, more popular of the two on social media, managed to achieve a tangible position but made a blunder in the end with h5, allowing Carlsen to take his queen to b7.
Along with his rook on e7, Anand decided to call it quits.
On Anand's blunder, Carlsen said he had to double check whether his queen's move was actually a winning one.
"It is a pity I threw it away," Anand said.
"Vishy self destructed today. I think he created a big hole for himself and it is nearly impossible to get out of," Susan Polgar, a four-time women's World chess champion, told IANS.
With his first victory as early as in the second tie of the 12-game match, Carlsen now leads the series by 1.5-0.5. Team Anand will now have to think of something out-of-the-box to contain the Carlsen juggernaut.
Match Video
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