Sunday, May 20, 2012

Anand-Gelfand game 7: a win for Gelfand!

Wow! The game started just like all the previous games in which Gelfand had White, but explodes at the end with a marvelous mating net of the Rook and two Knights; at the end, Anand queens his pawn but is mated.

GM Sergei Shipov's comments on the game are delightful and sharp:

In such a lamentable position there is no good advice for Black.

...

It's painful to look at the bishop on c8 ... As, indeed, it is painful to look at the world champion himself on the video feed. Black holds on, which is to say that he prolongs the resistance by playing forced moves. Meanwhile White attacks with moves that can easily be made by the hand alone, without the brain's assistance.

A wonderful game, beautiful and violent; surely we will now see much more fighting chess this week!

At any rate, the score now stands: Gelfand: 4, Anand: 3.

And, meanwhile, over the weekend Nakamura beat Kamsky for the first time ever (and with Black, no less), to take the lead of the U.S. Championship, and followed that up the next day with a quick victory over Seirawan to take the title. Congratulations to 2012 U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura!

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