World chess championship: Carlsen wins game 6, takes lead at the half way stage
Anand missed a sure shot way of striking back in game six after Carlsen made a blunder on the 26th move
Aniek Paul

Sochi (Russia): World champion Magnus Carlsen on Saturday won the sixth game of the ongoing chess championship match, pulling ahead at the half way stage, after Viswanathan Anand overlooked a one-move opportunity to turn the game and perhaps the match, too, on its head.

After piling pressure on Anand from the beginning, Carlsen blundered after about two hours of play on the 26th move, giving the Indian grandmaster an immediate opportunity to swing things in his favour.

But Anand, a five-time world champion who lost his crown last year, overlooked the correct move, which allowed Carlsen to tighten his grip on the game. Carlsen noticed the opportunity that he had given Anand immediately after making his 26th move. He said he panicked and might not have been able to keep a poker face for long, but Anand made his move within a minute, throwing away the gift.

“Sometimes when you are not expecting a gift, you don’t take it,” Anand said, visibly disappointed with the miss. It was a “pretty terrible game”, he added.

Had he seized the opportunity on the 26th move, Anand would have got an advantageous position, from which he could have even squeezed a win. Carlsen said the tables would have completely turned and he could only fight for a draw had Anand seized the advantage.

Anand, too, later noticed what he had missed. His defence thereafter wasn’t accurate and, in a little over an hour, he ran out of resources to fight on. Recovering from such misses isn’t ever easy, especially if a player is defending.

It was clear from Anand’s looks that he noticed what he had missed, US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura said on Twitter.

“But this is potentially more serious,” he said, adding that Anand’s miss was “almost as bad as dropping Rohit Sharma on four runs”. He was referring to the Indian batsman’s record-setting 264-run knock against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens on Thursday. 


“Vishy won’t be able to sleep tonight,” Italian grandmaster and one of the world’s strongest players, Fabiano Caruana, said on Twitter.

“I am relieved,” Carlsen said at the end of the game, adding that he wasn’t, though, impressed with himself or the win on Saturday.

“This is a huge psychological blow for Anand,” grandmaster Susan Polgar said on Twitter. As the players take a break on Sunday, Polgar said Anand must forget this game to be able to stage a comeback in the remaining half of the match.

The 12-game match has so far been closely fought, with Carlsen winning game 2 and Anand striking back in the very next game to restore parity in scores with a win in game 3.

After Saturday’s win, Carlsen leads 3.5-2.5. At this stage last year, Anand trailed Carlsen by two games.

Experts criticized the Indian grandmaster’s choice of opening moves with black pieces on Saturday. Though solid, it was widely seen as too passive, which allowed Carlsen to settle into a kind of position which he normally handles well.

“This feels like a Chennai defence,” grandmaster Jonathan Tisdall said on Twitter, referring to Anand’s passive style of play in the Chennai match against Carlsen a year ago. Anand has so far played this match quite aggressively, often showing that he is prepared to take the fight to his much younger and higher rated opponent. That has worked to his advantage so far.

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