Notts News Newsletter of the Nottinghamshire Chess Association 2007–08 No. 9 29 September 2007 http://www.nottschess.org/
[email protected] Copyright © Nottinghamshire Chess Association 2007 World Championship 0–0 14.Kb1 Qc7 15.Qf2 White wants to remove the black Viswanathan Anand broke away from the field early in the knight at c6, which defends d5 15...Nc4 16.Bxc4 Bxc4 17. second half of the World Championship. Round 9 saw defeats Nd5 This is new in Grandmaster chess (Leko played 17.Na4 for both of his rivals, Boris Gelfand and Vladimir Kramnik, against Svidler in 2004). Anand’s idea seems natural enough giving Anand a one-point lead. In Round 10 Kramnik made a 17...Bxd5 18.Rxd5 f5 19.gxf6 Rxf6 Black counters by big effort to beat Anand, but the leader defended well and opening the f-file for his rooks 20.Qe2 Nf4 21.Bxf4 Rxf4 22. probably stood better when the draw was agreed. Rd3 Qd7 23.Nc1! White wants to re-route the knight to d5, Anand appeared to have put the issue almost beyond doubt but 23.Na5 (intending Nc4-e3-d5) is met by 23...b5 24.Nb3, with a fine win over Alexander Morozevich in Round 11, but when White has just lost time 23...Rcf8 24.a3 Clearing the Gelfand and Kramnik kept the contest alive by both winning in knight’s path 24...Kh8 25.Na2 Qh3 26.Rg3 Qh5 27.Qg2 Round 12. When they drew with each other in their penultimate game it looked as though the contest was all over, but Alexander Grischuk clearly hadn’t read the script: he forced Anand into a very difficult endgame a pawn down.