Devastating defeat

Magnus Carlsen crushes Viswanathan Anand
Express news service : Moscow, Wed Jun 19 2013, 09:05 hrs

With a win that is sure to confirm his status as the favourite for the World title, contender Magnus Carlsen crushed the incumbent Viswanathan Anand in less than 30 moves in the fifth round of the Tal Memorial on Tuesday. In what was their final game before they face off in the World Chess Championship final in November this year, Anand’s passive play was clinically exploited by Carlsen in the confidence-boosting win.

Anand and Carlsen may have begun this round far from the leaderspot in the table, but much of the focus was on their game, considering the impact a decisive result could have in the destination of the World title. Playing white, Carlsen opted for the Reshevsky variation of the Nimzo-Indian, a line that is not played too frequently at the top level. “I chose a line he hadn’t faced for a long time. I hopefully he wouldn’t be too prepared for that,” said Carlsen in the post-match press conference.

Tentative game

The strategy worked as Anand (black) played a tentative game throughout, despite the Nimzo-Indian being one of the key components of his reportoire. After the opening, Carlsen had a central pawn majority as opposed to Anand’s sentinels enjoying a numerical superiority on the queen side. Anand’s passive play, especially a re-routing of the bishop to its starting place, allowed Carlsen the luxury of playing for two results, a win for white or a draw.

“Now he’s trying to transfer the bishop to f5 after which his problems would be much less at least. I think it’s a decent enough positional move it just doesn’t work. At least as far as I could see,” said Carlsen.

White exchanged his weak bishop and his position by around move 19 was so pleasant that whichever avenue of attack he chose, Anand would have had a terrible time trying to defend it. Anand’s repeated attempts to have a quiet game only worsened his position and eventually, Carlsen’s central pawn push, combined with his rook in the seventh rank meant black’s position became untenable. When Anand resigned in the 29th move, he was even on material, but the writing was on the wall. He would soon be two pawns down and unable to prevent a pawn roll either along the middle of the board or on the queen’s side.

Carlsen later tried to downplay the significance of the win, but said it was good to show Anand that their frequent draws of late may not be the only outcomes possible. “It’s good before the World Championship match to remind him that I can outplay him once in a while since obviously between us there have been a lot of draws, recently at least. But I’m not going to go around and think that’s he’s going to have such a bad day every day at the World Championship, I’ll have to prepare for the worst, definitely,” he said.

In other results, Boris Gelfand beat an adventurous Alexander Morozevich who opted to go for an exchange down without an obvious recompense to join Hikaru Nakamura in the lead. Anand is placed joint eighth and will take on Nakamura, who beat him the last time the pair met, in round six.

Results, round five: Magnus Carlsen bt Viswanathan Anand, Boris Gelfand bt Alexander Morozevich, Hikaru Nakamura drew with Dmitry Andreikin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov drew with Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik drew with Sergey Karjakin.

Rankings, after round five: 1-2. Nakamura, Gelfand (3.5 pts); 2-4. Mamedyarov, Carlsen (3); 5-6. Andreikin, Caruana (2.5); 7-8. Karjakin, Anand (2); 9-10. Morozevich, Kramnik (1.5).

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com