We all know Visvanathan Anand is a five times world chess champion. He has played many brilliant games specially during World Chess Championship 2008 at Bonn against one of the greatest chess players Vladimir Kramnik from Russia.Rivalry and Friendship between Vishy and Kramnik is well known and has been very special as the ‘great duo’ is very different when they meet as opponents over the board. Remember, the world championship in 2000 was a knock-out & in 2007 it was round robin tournament which made Vishy a world chess champion.
(A still from World Chess Championship 2008)
World Chess Championship title had a great hype to this match. This was Vishy’s first test in world championships as a match player. The fight was intense as Kramnik had shared few nasty comments before the match to which like a gentleman, Vishy chose not to react to!
Despite being a strong player, Vishy has always managed not to get disturbed by off the board comments!
After going through the championship which was eventually over in halfway (Vishy winning 3 games), Vishy showed why he is known as Madras Tiger!
We would like to show one of the brilliant games from the match.
Road to Game 5 of WCC 2008
First 2 games were drawn & game 3 was first decisive game won by Anand with black pieces. Playing a razor-sharp ‘meran’ variation of the Semi-Slav Defence. Game 4 was also drawn and players entered game 5 with Anand leading 2.5 to 1.5 of Kramnik. In Game 5 (Kramnik with white) black’s structure was slightly spoilt whereas white had a solid king safety! Black’s idea is to attack the white King!
“Anand the Brave!” writes Levon Aronian in his assessment of game five of the World Championship.
Drama about to begin…
After lot of imbalance, exchanges, game was poised to conclude middle game with position as –
White is a clear pawn up & has 2 passed pawns! Seems a very promising position on the board while we enter an endgame where black might have to defend to get a draw… Not Really!
Tactics need to go beyond a Horizon
In this position, Anand gave a check with Rc1 & Kramnik had an only move to play which was Bf1 to prevent check!
Here, Anand to Kramnik’s horror scarified his knight, by playing Ne3!
Kramnik was forced to capture it with pawn and in reply Anand recaptured with his pawn. Now, there is no way bishop can come out to stop the pawn on e3 from queening… Two of white’s passed pawns are mere spectators!
Kramnik after realizing its all over…
So, after this move Kramnik was forced to resign. A dramatic end to the game! Perhaps the game ended pre-maturely!
Beyond the analysis, a brilliancy is always finding best moves in any position!
This tells us, even top GMs, at times miss on part where at the end of the tactics, the chances are over for one side. A win like this can put an end to the journey of World Chess Championship!
Eventually Vishy won 2008 World Chess Championship and World of Chess remembers this as one of the most attacking style in Championship!
