Down To The Wire

Impressions on Game 11, Anand-Topalov world championship match, Sofia

Game 11 would be Anand's last chance with the White pieces. A win would seal the match. A draw meant that he would again have to face Topalov with the black pieces in the final game. Therefore, what was needed was an opening which would give him enough chances of victory without too many risks.

Anand chose the English Opening. The name derives from the English champion Howard Staunton who employed it in his match against the French champ Charles Fournier de Saint Amant in 1843. The opening then languished in obscurity before being revived nearly a hundred years later. The English involves a pawn marching down the flank. Black has many ways of countering this flank activity. Topalov chose the direct, a thrust of his king pawn - to take control of the centre.
Anand's 11th move was quite rare, and Topalov's response was even rarer. By the 12th move, the game had left established territory and the two players were out on their own. As the game proceeded deep into the middle-game, the contours of the struggle ahead were now vaguely discernible. Until then, there had been little contact between the two armies, both of which were preoccupied in manoeuvres behind their own lines.

Anand finally was able to induce a concession from Topalov. His steady pressure meant that Topalov was forced to open the "c-file". Anand doubled his rooks i.e both his rooks were in front of each other, in self-supporting positions. Rooks are like tanks and they need avenues of approach into the enemy camp. A standard method of frustrating tanks is to scatter minefields in their paths. Topalov had done that, but Anand had managed to clear the clusters of pawns and pieces in their path. The goal of the rooks is to penetrate down the files - long avenues that lead into the black position and then commence deep operations in the enemy rear. Topalov had seen all that, and was taking counter-measures in advance. Such positions, where the storm is easily predictable but may occur many moves ahead baffle computers. In fact one engine evaluation (called "evals") read 000 which meant that the software engine could not decide which move to play.

Anand gained the file for his rooks but Topalov had a steady hand at the tiller. He promptly exchanged a pair of rooks taking the sting out of Anand's plan. Indeed, the Bulgarian swiftly neutralized Anand's initiative who then abandoned the flank. Instead he chose to hit out at the centre but nothing came of that either. Topalov exchanged the queens and the position looked extremely drawish.

If anything, Topalov had a nagging pressure because of the weakness of Anand's sole pawn on the queen side. That pawn had advanced far down the board in the early enthusiasm of the attack but when the attack had come to nought, it was left on its own. Anand could have chosen to passively defend but instead he breathed new life into the game.

On the 49th move, just as the spectators were resigning themselves to a dull draw Anand sacrificed the queen side pawn. Anand's idea was simple. The remnants of his army to wit, the king, a rook, a knight and two pawns were solely concentrated on the king-side. Opposing them was the enemy king with the uncertain protection of just one pawn. Perhaps a sudden sally would take the rival monarch by surprise? Even as Topalov captured his pawn, Anand began a charge down the king-side bearing down on the Black king. There were many risks associated in such a plan. For one, Topalov was now free to hurl his queen-side pawns forward, unrestrained due to the lack of enemy forces opposing them. Then because Anand's king had advanced so far down the board, Topalov's rook could undertake a back-door attack. Anand however had calculated deeply and soon set a very pretty trap. Apparently his rook was allowing the enemy pawn to "touchdown" and become a queen. However, were Topalov to do that, Anand's rook would dive down and deliver checkmate to the black king which was hemmed in by the rest of Anand's army. Naturally Topalov saw the trap and declined - leading to a draw where Anand's rook would incessantly "check" the king. Such a method, called draw by "perpetual" is a common way of ending a chess game.

Now all eyes are turned to the final struggle on Tuesday. Anand is facing the toughest game of his career. Topalov, with the white pieces will be going all out for victory. Were Topalov to draw then the match will be tied and enter tie-breaks. The tie-breaks would be another match, this time for 4 games played in the rapid format. Rapid games are over under an hour unlike the 7 hours of so in the regular games. Anand is simply the greatest rapid player of all time and Topalov would be anxious to avoid meeting him. After all, Topalov lost his crown in exactly the same circumstances to Kramnik in 2006.

Still that is getting ahead of ourselves. Anand knows that playing for a draw often leads to a loss. He will come out fighting, looking for activity, looking for opportunities in the final game. The final struggle is often the fiercest. So it will be down to the wire, Game 12, the final regular format game on Tuesday and the stakes could not be higher for either player.

Jaideep Unudurti is co-writing the Hyderabad Graphic Novel (http://hgnp.wordpress.com/)