WC match: Carlsen leads Anand 3.5-2.5

FROM CHESSBASE.COM



Carlsen, Magnus2863–Anand, Vishwanathan27921–0B41World Championship Match 2014615.11.2014Sagar Shah
After yesterday's game five Magnus was visibly relaxed. He had drawn with the black pieces and was now ready to press with White in games six and seven. But today we witnessed something weird. Magnus got a nice position out of the opening. No queens. slight pressure, just what he likes. As he was building up his position, he made a horrible mistake and gave Anand the chance to win the game with a simple tactic. Anand missed it and things were back on track for the World Champion. He won a smooth game after that. Let's get straight to the action 1.e4 Carlsen sticks to his king pawn. c5 And Anand seems to be happy with the position he got in the fourth game with the Sicilian. 2.f3 e6 3.d4!? The Open Sicilian! An interesting question is when n Open Sicilian was last played in a World Championship match. As my friend IM Srinath Narayanan mentioned, it was last played by Vishy Anand vs Boris Gelfand in their World Championship match 2012. Remember the Sicilian Sveshnikov!cxd4 4.xd4 a6!? The Sicilian Kan! It has not be as popular as it's brother the Sicilian Taimanov with 4...Nc6 but nevertheless it is a very popular opening.4...c6 is the Taimanov. 5.c4 White sets up the Maroczy bind. This Maroczy bind against the Kan is much more potent than the one against Taimanov as in the latter the knight is already on c6. f6 6.c36.e5 a5+ of course is a very common trap. 6...b4 Developing with momentum by putting pressure on the e4 pawn. There are lot of ways in which White can defend the e4 pawn but all have their own drawbacks.6...c7 is the other main move here but White has been scoring pretty well here after 7.a3!? 7.d3!? A very odd move in the opening. Supposedly the d3 square looks more natural for the bishop but the queen move has its own advantages. The biggest one being that after Nc6 by black, White can just take it and then exchange the queens, which would not have been possible had the bishop been on d3. This move has been already played by some great players like Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Leko and also Vishy Anand!7.d3 c6 8.xc6 dxc6 9.e5 a5!? leads to comfortable equality for Black. 7.f3 weakens the dark squares a little and can be met with the simple c7 8.g5 c6 Black has a fine position. 7.e5 e4 8.g4 xc3 9.a39.xg7 a4+ 10.d1 f8-+ 9...f8 10.bxc3 a5 7...c67...c7 was the other available option. 8.a3 xc3+ 9.xc3xe4 10.b5! is the little trick in this position. axb5 11.xg7 f812.h6± White is substantially better. 8.xc6 dxc68...bxc6 9.a3 xc3+ 10.xc3 is a very pleasant position for White. 9.xd8+ Once again Magnus gets what he wants. Queens are off the board and he can press in this slightly superior endgame. A good opening outcome for the World Champion.9.e5 xd3 10.xd3 d7 9...xd8 10.e5 This looks pretty natural and the best move in the position gaining more space.10.d3 e5! and Black has no problems. 10.d2 e5!= Gives Black a good position.10...xc3?! 11.xc3 xe4 12.xg7 g8 13.e5± 10...d7 This move can be condenmed as being too passive. The other option was the more active Ne4. But does that solve all of Black's opening problems? I am not sure.10...e4 11.a3!11.d2?! xd2 12.xd2 c7 11...xc3+ 12.bxc3 White has a nice position with extra space and two bishops. He should be better. c712...xc3? 13.a4! e4 14.e3± 13.e3 11.f4 It was important to defend the e5 pawn with the bishop. If White played his pawn to f4 it would have only hindered his bishop on c1. This same position could be reached with white to play if White did not waste a tempo with Qd3 and then taking on d8. That would have been wonderful as now White could have just played Rc1 preserving his pawn structure. But it's Black's move now and he takes on c3.xc3+ 12.bxc3 c7 Many strong players on Twitter condemned Vishy's opening play. GM Fabiano Caruana:Passive and unpleasant position for Anand - something went very wrong. Now we can settle down for a long grind. GM Pentala Harikrishna: Anands opening choice is surprising. if it is not worked out until draw,it is unpleasant position to play against Magnus. GM Nigel Short: Actually I don't like the Black position at all GM Teimour Radjabov: Terrible choice by Anand today. Just worse,being worse on Saturday all day long is unpleasant,bad week-end choice. As you can see all the top GMs are in consensus that Black's position is passive and Magnus is going to grind on for a long time! Not good news for Vishy Anand. 13.h4!Typical Magnus move. You have to feel chess as well as he does to explain this move. But let me make an attempt. The first idea is to push the pawn further gaining more space. The pawn goes to h5 and if unhindered even to h6. Also the h1 rook can immediately be activated via h3 and attack the g7 pawn. So all in all this move starts to put latent pressure on Black's position. b6 14.h5 The pawn wishes to go further to h6 and create more dark squared weaknesses. h6Stopping the h-pawn but now the g7 pawn will be weak. And Carlsen takes full advantage of it. 15.0-0-015.d1!? was interesting because later on, Magnus did bring his king over to e1. Maybe this would have saved him a few moves. 15...b7 16.d3!? As mentioned before the rook goes to g3 but very interesting to note the rook which Magnus chose. The rook on h1 is already very well placed because whenever the pressure on g7 will increase, Black will go g6 and then Rh1 will anyway come into the game. c5 17.g3 ag8 18.d3 White moves are definitely easier to make in this position. Black has a lot of pressure and it is not so easy to relieve himself of it. While Carlsen is an excellent grinder, Anand is a shrewd defender in such positions always looking for active counterplay. A great battle of attack and defense lies ahead.f8 Anand is definitely angling for g6 to activate his pieces. 19.e3g619...d7 20.f3!?20.f4 20...xe520...c8 21.f4 21.f4 f6 22.xe5+ fxe5 23.e1 20.hxg6 xg620...fxg6? 21.xh6+- 21.h5! Carlsen knows the best way to keep up the pressure in the position. He has the double bishops and would not want to part with them unless he is getting some very concrete advantage.21.xh6 xe5! 22.f422.xh8 xd3+ 23.d2 xh8 24.xd3 d8+ 22...xg3 23.xe5+ d7 24.xh8 xd3= 21...c6!? This and the next move Kb7 was made pretty quickly by Vishy. He simply wants to get his king off the h2-b8 diagonal. 22.c2The bishop was exposed and undefended on d3 and threats like Nxe5 would be in the air, so Magnus safely decides to remove the bishop from that square.22.d2 looked pretty natural but now Black can relieve the pressure with the very accurate e7! 23.xg8 xg8 24.g3 d8!The reason why Kd2 would be a bad move. 25.c225.e2 f3+! 25...a4+ 26.d2 f5 22.f4? xe5! 23.xg8 xd3+ 24.d2 xg8-+ 22...b722...e7 23.xg8 xg8 24.g3 maintains the pressure on Black thanks to the weakened h6 pawn. 23.g423.d2 was a better way to start. The king will be well placed on e2. As we will see in the game the timing Magnus chose to bring out his king was completely wrong. e8 24.e1!24.e2 f5! 23...a5 24.d1 d824...e7 25.xg8 xg8 26.g3 keeps control. 25.c2 dg8 26.d2? An extremely bad mistake by Carlsen and very uncharacteristic of him. He is usually quite alert to the tactical details but here this move simply lets Vishy win a pawn. a4? Missing a huge tactical resource. As Vishy said after the game, he was just too focussed on this idea with a4-a3 and trying to get counterplay that he did not notice this tactic with Nxe5. Magnus noticed that he had missed the tactics after he played Kd2 and Vishy noticed it after he played a4.26...xe5! It is extremely surprising that Vishy missed this simple tactic. 27.xg8 xc4+! 28.d3 b2+ 29.d2 xg8 With the g2 pawn attacked and Nc4 coming up again, this position is extremely bad for White. How did Vishy miss this tactic. He was under pressure and he made his move 26...a4 very quickly. Maybe he just didn't believe that Carlsen would blunder so badly. Caruana's tweet at this point: "Shocking blunders... Vishy won't be able to sleep tonight." 27.e2 Everything is back to normal now. Magnus pressing and Vishy defending!27.a3 would have been ideal but then it would trying your luck a little bit too muc. Nxe5 is just winning. xe5 27...a3 What has Black achieved by pushing his pawn to a3? The main idea is to now at some point play Ra8 and exchange the bishops with Ba4. Kramnik said that Magnus should not have allowed the black pawn to come to a3 but I think Magnus realised that Nxe5 was actually possible and hence could not meet a4 with a3. 28.f3Defending the rook on g4 and blunting the bishop on c6. d829.e1 Magnus is playing the waiting game. He is keeping all his options open, realizing that Black can do absolutely nothing.29.xg6 fxg6 30.xg6 e8 31.g7+ d7 32.xd7+ xd733.xh6 xh6 34.xh6 In this endgame you cannot be sure that White is winning. a4 35.c1 c2 36.xa3 b1 37.g4 xa238.d3 c7 39.c1 d7= and Black should be able to hold this one. 29...d7 Vishy's idea is now simple. He doesn't really care for the h6 pawn, he just wants to create counterplay. 30.c1 a8 31.e2a4 From this point Vishy starts to self destruct. He gives up all the pawns without any compensation .31...ad8 was a better try 32.xh6?! h8! 33.xg6 fxg634.xg6 And White is pinned and it's opposite coloured bishops and there are some chances to draw. 32.e4+! Forcing the bishop to come back to c6. c6?32...a7 was not the ideal option but it was the only way for Black to continue the fight. 33.xa833.xg6 fxg6 34.xg6 b3! 35.axb335.xa3 xc4+ 35...a2 36.b2 ad8 Black has a lot of counterplay. 33...xa8 might have been an interesting choice as the knight on g6 sits strong and Black has decent counterplay. Of course White is better but Black has his chances. 34.xh6 d1 35.xa3 a136.e3 xe5 33.xg6! Now it is all over. All the black pawns are falling. fxg634.xg6 a434...ad8 35.hxh6 doesnt generate sufficient counterplay. d136.g5 8d7 37.xe6+- 35.xe6 d1 36.xa3 a1 37.e3 c2 38.e7+ And there was absolutely nothing that Vishy could do and he had to resign the game.38.e7+ a6 39.xh6 xa2 40.xc5+- The main thing I feel happened in this game is that at some point Vishy realized that he missed Nxe5 tactic and he just started to play weak moves. A nice win for Magnus who now leads the match 3.5-2.5. 1–0