World Chess 2012 Game 10 - I Thought I Had Endgame Hope, says Anand

The World Chess Championship 2012 is down to the last two games between Israel's Boris Gelfand and India's Viswanathan Anand. The two remaining chess games - before the tiebreak (if required) on Wednesday - would be broadcast live at the official website on Saturday and Monday from 4.15 pm India time. Sunday is a rest day. The score stands tied at 5-5 as of now.

Meanwhile, during the press conference after Game 10, it became known that the challenger had offered a draw on move 21, but the world champion decided to continue the game, believing that he still had winning chances after 14.Nbd2. Yet the game ended in a draw a few moves later. 

Commenting on the game, Viswanathan Anand noted that 5…e5 seemed very interesting. “My knight settled on e3. In the endgame, I had some hopes; I thought that it was probably not huge, but White could have some pressure because of Black’s weak pawns on the c-file. I think 19…Bc4 was a good move. The problem with 19…f5 is that I can play 20.Ng3 and, after Bb4, there is the in-between move 21.Nf5, basically much better for White. If Black makes any other waiting move, then I can double the rooks and play Bc1-Bf4, which should be in my favour. Maybe 17.Ba3 is already a slightly wrong plan, but in the event of 17.a3 with the idea of b4, I thought Black could play 17…Nd5 and Nb6 somewhere.” 
  

Boris Gelfand also commented on the game, in particular 5…e5: “It’s always pleasant to apply a novelty on move 5. It doesn’t happen every day. People talk about novelties on move 20, 25, or even frighten you with novelties on move 40… I liked the series of moves after the capture on e5, where Black attacks the knight four times in a row. Black should play precisely, but I think the position holds, which I actually demonstrated.”

Answering the question as to whether the players wanted to determine the outcome of the match in additional time (similar to football), Anand said he didn’t think about a tie-break but played each game individually, making decisions depending on the position on the board. Gelfand said that any comparisons with football were not quite relevant here: “No one is stalling for time here. In football, the players may be tired in the 120th minute, but this doesn’t mean that any team wouldn’t be glad to win in the regular time.”

Asked whether the players analysed the games after they were over, the world champion answered that, of course, he was curious about what had happened but he didn’t spend too much time on analysis because he had to get ready for the next games. “I decided to postpone the analysis until after the match, when I’ll take a close look at my games,” said the challenger.

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