Monday, May 28, 2012
Gelfand: Vishy is not just an excellent speed chess player – he’s an excellent player in all time controls!
Game 12 Live Today 2012 Anand, Gelfand World Chess Championship 4.15 pm India Time
As you know, the world chess championship 2012 is being held in a most beautiful venue - the Tretyakov Gallery.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Who Is Andrey Filatov? - Forbes Profile, Interview of 2012 World Chess Championship Main Sponsor
The opening of the main chess event of the season – the world championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand – is taking place at the State Tretyakov Gallery. The driving force behind staging this contest in Moscow and the main sponsor of the match, ANDREY FAILATOV, a shareholder in the N-Trans Group, told Kommersant’s correspondent ALEXEY DOSPEKHOV why he decided to invest money in chess and how he plans to change the economics of chess and link it to Russian art.
– I’m primarily interested, of course, in your motivation. Why finance a world championship chess match? Is it to boost your own image, a desire to help the sport you were very seriously involved in when you were young?
– A country that fights for all the major international events – the APEC summit, the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, the Universiade – simply cannot ignore a competition which at one time was one of its main symbols. When Boris Gelfand, who was a student friend of mine, won the candidates’ tournament, he said that the venue for the match had not been decided yet, but there were various rumours going around that it would be either in India or somewhere else. It turned out that there had indeed been no application from Moscow, so I had a think and decided we had to try.
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| Click on photo to see Andrey Filatov's Forbes profile |
– On the contrary, I wasn’t sure we would win the right to host the match. But I could see that in any case one way or another there would be a winner. If Moscow’s bid failed, Boris Gelfand would earn a bigger prize fund, because the rival bid would have to beat it with money. And if it won, so much the better: the country would gain a serious competition that had not been staged here in the history of modern Russia. You’ll agree that’s a simple and understandable motive. Then it started to develop in terms of the current situation with chess, a new economics of chess, and the main points on which it could be based.
Candidates Chess Matches 2011 - The Grischuk Game That Brought Gelfand to Moscow
What brought Israel's Boris Gelfand to the World Chess Championship 2012 in Moscow? Israeli Boris Gelfand won the last - sixth game - in the FIDE Candidates Matches 2011 final in Kazan against Russian Alexander Grischuk to become the challenger for the World Champion Viswanathan Anand from India and is therefore, now playing in Moscow.
In the press conference immediately after the sixth game Gelfand had said he was lucky when Grischuk chose a variation in Gruenfeld which was very familiar to him. With novelty in move 13 white really surprised Russian GM and after move 16 the clocks depicted a very unusual picture: black had spent exactly one hour more than white: Gelfand – 9 minutes, Grischuk – 1 hour and 9 minutes. It was a great game for the Israeli Grandmaster Boris Gelfand as it was the biggest success of his chess career.
Tomorrow - Monday, May 28, is Game 12 of the Anand, Gelfand World Chess Championship 2012 in the classical control. You can watch Game 12 Live from India time 4.15 onwards at the official website of the world chess championship.
You can replay the Grischuk-Gelfand chess game 6 from the Kazan Candidates Matches 2011 in our Chess King applet.
You can replay the Grischuk-Gelfand chess game 6 from the Kazan Candidates Matches 2011 in our Chess King applet.
World Chess Championship 2012 Game 12 - Revisiting Topalov-Anand 2010
(In Chess King diagram on left: The crucial 31. ...e4 that led Anand to a World Chess Championship victory against Topalov in 2010. Replay the game at the end of this post.)
Defending world chess champion Viswanathan Anand will have White in Monday's last game. He had won with Black against Topalov in 2010! The scores in the Anand, Gelfand match are tied at 5.5-5.5 after 11 games. But, Gelfand has proven to be much tougher than Topalov. In the 2012 world chess match, both the challenger and the champion have already shared one victory each. Should Game 12 also end in a draw tiebreak games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
In case of a draw in the last game, the players will play four rapid games first and then, if necessary, five sets of two blitz games to decide the crown. An Armageddon game is the last possibility. Gelfand is not too bothered about Anand's expertise at shorter versions of the game. "I would say that with all his results Vishy has proved that he is one of the best, or maybe the best at all-time controls. Look at his record — otherwise he wouldn't have been world champion for so many years," he said.
Meanwhile, "Israelis are indeed showing their pride and support for Gelfand. Many hardcore chess fans have come to Moscow to see the match in person, as opposed to following it online like tens of thousands of others are doing," reported daily Ha`aretz, as the championship is generating more and more interest in the Israeli public.
Several Israelis arrived in the Russian capital a few days before the match started. Even though lodging in one of the world`s most expensive cities requires both daring and deep pockets, many continue to follow as the match enters the final stages.
"And those aren`t even the bulk of Gelfand`s supporters, who are expected to arrive. That group includes several high-ranking chess players and a fair number of amateurs, who decided to combine a tour of Moscow`s countless historical sites with the final stage of the match," the report added.
A lot of these amateur and professional chess players have gathered in the centre of Israel to watch the match.
"Of course, the chess players are excited about this," Yoav Nissenbaum, a member of the Israel Chess Federation said, adding, "This is the first time that an Israeli has made it to the world championship." Ido Ben Artzi, a 17-year-old grandmaster, says that he hardly misses a single move in the match.
"I try to get home in time. I go over the game and see what I think of every single move, without relying on the commentary for help. That`s how I put myself in the players` places," he said. Replay the last 2010 Topalov-Anand World Chess Championship Game in our Chess King applet.
Anand, Gelfand Game 11 in 2012 World Chess Match - Vishy Surprises Gelfand With 8. ... Bd7
The chess move surprise that Boris Gelfand had prepared for Viswanathan Anand in Game 10 got a reply in the form of another surprise chess move from the reigning world chess champion in Game 11. Anand chose the Nimzo-Indian Defence for Black (like in Game 9) and left his opponent thinking very, very long after 8…Bd7.
Photos: Official Website
Eventually, of course, the Queens were traded and though Boris Gelfand held the advantage of two bishops, the “hanging pawns” in the centre came under fire from enemy rooks. On the twentieth move, the Indian grandmaster launched tactical operations in the centre, preventing his opponent from stabilising the situation and strengthening his advantage. Running out of time to think, Gelfand decided to simplify things after which their positions were completely equalised. On the 24th move, the opponents agreed to a draw.
The guests of honour on May 26 were the famous Russian musicians, pianist Nikolai Lugansky and cellist Alexander Knyazev. Former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik delivered a lecture to children and parents and also took numerous questions from the young audience. The world's second highest rated chess grandmaster Levon Aronian also visited the venue briefly.
Following Game 11, the score is even at 5.5-5.5. Sunday, May 27, is an off-day at the match. Game 12 - the final one with classical time control - will be held on Monday, May 28. Viswanathan Anand will play White. If the score is still even after this game, the world champion will be determined by a tiebreak (in games with accelerated time control) on Wednesday, May 30. As always, you can watch the excellent live broadcast of Game 12 of the 2012 World Chess Championship at the official website.
