The World Chess Championships in Bonn have finished. Viswanathan Anand defeated Vladimir Kramnik in the twelve game match 6½-4½. For quiet a while, it appeared that Kramnik would go down in defeat without winning a single game. I was thinking this myself, but around game eight, Kramnik began getting the slightly better positions. For the entire match, Anand was not only getting in the novelties, but decent positions, and although Kramnik didn’t make many errors, they were definitely costly mistakes. But by the time game eight came around, it appeared that Anand’s opening preparation was running dry and Kramnik was having an easier time. But draw after draw, Kramnik was left with three ”must win” games. In game 10, Anand’s pieces became confused and eventually the white pieces overwhelmed the position.
I had a feeling that Anand would play 1.e4 at some point in the match, simply because the Petroff would not be the choice of opening when you need to play sharply. Kramnik use to be the great Sveshnikov player, but apparently that wasn’t sharp enough. The last game was a Najdorf.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cd4 4.Nd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qc7 8.Bf6 gf6 9.f5
I have to say that in my notes, I have this move marked as dubious. It has seemed to be revived, however, and I’m seeing more and more games played with this particular move. Many of the older games showed that black doesn’t have any problems in the opening, but perhaps the times are changing once again.
In any case, it is always exciting to see the analysis of World Championship matches. Not only is there possibly a new idea in the Najdorf, but the Meran Semi-Slav games certainly put some recent opening books out of date.