No Russian roulette
By Vijay Tagore, Mumbai Mirror | Nov 8, 2014, 02.01 AM IST
Anand needs something more to outwit favourite Carlsen in the World Chess Championship starting in Sochi today.
Sochi is a famous tourists’ hub for sure, but the Russian city is not a great place to visit these days. Vladimir’s Putin’s country is grappling with international sanctions for its alleged complicity in terrorist activities in Ukraine and the Black Sea Resort town is not too far from the place where MH17 crashed in July this year.
It is not a warzone exactly but Sochi’s subtropical weather, picturesque Caucasus Mountains and the Stalinist architecture have lost some of its sheen since Russia started attracting global reprisal. Putin, close to being an international pariah, is striving to extract some political and diplomatic mileage by successfully staging global sports competitions like Winter Olympics, F1 race and World Cup football in that city.
The World Chess Championship, starting today, is also on his agenda.
The Russian leader wants to ensure the three-week match-up between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen becomes a spectacular success and no wonder an invite has been sent to Narendra Modi as well. It is debatable how many will exactly visit Russia to witness the championship but the contest is expected to be quite a draw anyway. Chess, after all, is to Russia what cricket is to India.
Indian chess will need Anand to win the 12-game match to compete with the popularity of cricket but that is a prospect as likely as Roger Federer winning another Grand Slam title – difficult but not impossible. Like the Swiss star, Anand is also an aging maestro encountering young opponents. Carlsen is almost half of Anand’s age.
The 24-year-old Norwegian has turned chess into a physical more than a cerebral game and that is working to his advantage, particularly while playing against the 45-year-old Anand. He wears down his opponent by stretching the games to over six hours and calculating various lines and infinite combinations unerringly for that much time is an activity that demands extreme physical fitness as much as cerebral resilience.
Carlsen did that to Anand in Chennai last year and has had no qualms in admitting that he has made chess a physical sport. “For me, chess is first and foremost a sport and then secondly an art and a science. It definitely helped me in the World Championship match. I won two key games there in the fifth and sixth games, which I think were very much decided in the fifth and sixth hours by physical strength,” the world champion recently said.
The Chennai contest was a washout as far as Anand was concerned as he was devastated by a young Carlsen just like a youthful Boris Becker destroyed an experienced Ivan Lendl in 1986 Wimbledon final. The five-time world champion failed to utilise his vast experience and that was his undoing. Anand did not get the open, complex positions he wanted from the openings and failed to complicate the games, an area of his excellence. In Sochi, he would do well to remember that.
Berlin wall
Another area where Anand is required to come better prepared will be in Berlin Defense which Carlsen employed three times in his five black games (Caro Kann and Nimzo were the other openings by him from the black side) in Chennai. Berlin was like Dragon that Garry Kasparov unleashed on the Indian Grandmaster during the 1995 world championship in New York. Anand had no answers.
Berlin is a line that takes off from the Ruy Lopez Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, 4. 0-0 Ne4) where black plays 5…. Be7 after white goes to d4. It is not a popular line, often condemned as passive play, but Carlsen used this rare variation with great degree of ingenuity in Chennai.
Garry Kasparov had praised Carlsen’s tactics in Chennai after he won a game with the Blacks. “The Berlin line indeed is a rich and subtle middlegame. If White pushes too hard, the absence of queens from the board does not offer him any safety,” Kasparov had said. The Indian will have to crack the Berlin code in Sochi.
Carlsen sure starts as favourite but Anand, with wins in Candidates and Bilbao, will not be a pushover. Experts predict the contest to be close. Anand’s fortunes depend on his ability to complicate the position, something Carlsen does not cherish. He will also play freely as the pressure of defending the title is off him. Carlsen will have to handle all the pressure and Anand’s best chances lie there.
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Magnus Carlsen
Age: 24
Nationality: Norway
Elo: 2863
Rank: World No 1
Nickname: Mozart of Chess
Achievements: World No 1, World champion, world rapid champion and world blitz champion
Strengths
Creative: Very good at positions where nothing is happening. He mostly wins from equal positions
Finisher: A specialist in the middle and end-games
Never say die: Plays for win till the very end and rarely gets tiered
Age: Very young compared to Anand which means his ideas are that much fresh
Energy: Is supremely fit and is a bundle of energy. Can play long game undeterred
Weakness
Not great at opening and not very best in complex and complicated position. Goes for simplification and that can be his undoing, not often though
Viswanathan Anand
Age: 45
Nationality: India
Elo: 2792
Rank: World No 6
Nickname: Tiger of Madras
Achievements: 5-time world champion, has been among the top for 2 decades
Strengths
Opening: Is known for exhaustive openings, best in the world
Speed: Plays very fast and not for nothing he is known as lightning kid
Intuition: Incredible power of intuition, particularly in complex positions
Experience: Has been dominating world chess for over 20 and has played with very best
No pressure: Has nothing to lose as the burden of expectation of him; can play freely
Weakness
Nothing major but his age is a weak point; long games are not something he likes and may not be able to bounce back if he concedes early lead
NOTE: For the first time, same opponents are competing in back-to-back world championship matches since Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in 1990.
Source: http://www.mumbaimirror.com
All chess aficionados should sit back and appreciate the two players and the games. Unfortunately I have come across many idiotic comments . One mr ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL was literally spewing hate against Anand. Since he is Indian, such guys are truly ‘the enemy within’.