Gelfand-Anand 2012: Match for the World Chess Championship

By Karsten Müller and Viswanathan Anand

An Intense Title Tilt! When World Champion Viswanathan Anand squared off in the 2012 championship match against Boris Gelfand, he was a heavy favorite to win. But, top the surprise of many worldwide, the match was a very tough fight. On paper, the world champion was a clear favorite against the challenger; his Elo rating (2791) was much higher than Gelfand's (2727) and he had not lost to Gelfand since 1993. But this was deceptive. Boris Gelfand had prepared very well for the match and put all his energy into it. He had prepared many opening surprises especially for this match. This must have been a tremendous amount of work. But Gelfand and his team were up to the task. On the other hand, most of the preparation by the world champion and his trusted team of seconds, Peter Heine Nielsen, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Surya Ganguly and Radek Wojtaszek, remained hidden, as Gelfand did not give Anand the opportunity to use it. The result was no-holds-bar bout between the world champion and his determined challenger. After the first twelve games, played at classical (i.e., slow) time controls, the players were deadlocked. It was not until the rapid-play tie-breakers that Anand finally squeaked by. International grandmaster Karsten Maller, author of many popular chess books, including an eBook on the world championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov, has put together an excellent account of the Gelfand-Anand match, with all the games deeply annotated, an historical perspective and a Foreword by none other than the world champion himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell Enterprises, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781936490912

Book preview

Gelfand-Anand 2012

Match for the World Chess Championship

By

Karsten Müller

© Copyright 2013 Karsten Müller

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-936490-91-2 (ebook)

Published by:

Russell Enterprises, Inc.

PO Box 3131

Milford, CT 06460 USA

http://www.russell-enterprises.com

[e-mail]

Editing and proofreading by Peter Kurzdorfer

Special thanks to New In Chess for the photographs used in this eBook.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Karsten Müller

Foreword by Viswanathan Anand

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Game 8

Game 9

Game 10

Game 11

Game 12

Playoff Games

Game 13

Game 14

Game 15

Game 16

Sources

Introduction

Before anyone thought of creating the title of World Chess Champion, there was a succession of players throughout the history of the game who were generally recognized as the top player of the day. These included, but may not limited to, the Italians Greco and Damiano; the Spanish prelate Ruy Lopez; the French opera composer Philidor; the Irish champion Alexander McDonnell and the French champion LaBourdonnais, who played a series of matches in the 1830s (a precursor to the series of matches between Karpov and Kasparov over 150 years later) that left the Frenchman as the top master; the Frenchman Pierre de Saint Amant and the Englishman and Shakespearian Howard Staunton, who played a match in 1843 that propelled the Englishman to the top; and the German-born Adolf Anderssen, who won the first two international chess tournaments (London 1850 and London 1862).

Between those two tournaments, a young man from New Orleans arrived in New York and sailed to Paris and London, defeating all the best players of the day, including Anderssen in a match, and promptly retired from chess. Paul Morphy is dubbed the pride and sorrow of chess for his meteoric rise and premature retirement. He was the most dominant player of his time, which lasted from 1857 to 1859.

A few years later, in 1866, the Austrian-born Wilhelm (William) Steinitz also defeated Anderssen in a match. The German master was considered at the time to be the top active player, as a result of his international tournament wins and Morphy’s absence. Still, there was no such thing as a world chess champion.

Finally, after the Polish-born Johannes Zukertort won the third London International Tournament in 1883 and Steinitz finished second, three points behind, Steinitz and Zukertort reached an agreement to play a match for the World Chess Championship; both had obviously become the dominant forces in chess. The match took place in 1886. When Steinitz defeated the Polish master in what the players and the chess world at large considered the first official title match (it took place in three U.S. cities), he became the first official World Chess Champion.

For the next 62 years, until 1948, a world chess championship match was held every so often at irregular intervals. However, there was no official, formalized system to determine who should be allowed to challenge for the title. There was also no set formula for the terms and conditions of the championship match itself. Those who could raise the necessary funds to hold a match got to play, and they were not always the most worthy challengers. Thus, Rubinstein, Pillsbury, and Nimzowitsch never got a title shot, while Chigorin (twice), Gunsberg, Marshall, Tarrasch, Schlechter, Janowsky, and Bogoljubow (twice) did. The conditions, length, and format of the match also varied, from the ten-game Lasker-Schlechter match of 1910, to the 34-game Capablanca-Alekhine match of 1927.

There were a few attempts to establish a satisfactory system during that span. Most notably, a year after the great Cuban champion José Raúl Capablanca had dethroned Emanuel Lasker in 1921 to become the