Veni Vidi Vishy

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 21 May 2010)

Photo source: chessdom.com

World Championship
Sofia, Bulgaria
April 24-May 11, 2010

1. Anand, V. 2787 6.5/12
2. Topalov, V. 2805 5.5/12

Anand won games 2, 4 and 12
Topalov won games 1 and 8

Time Control: two hours for the first 60 moves followed by 15 minutes for the rest of the game. There is a 30-second increment after execution of move starting the 61st move.

Defending champion Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand won the very tense 12th and final game of his world championship match vs the Bulgarian GM Veselin Topalov to retain his world crown. This is the second defense of his title after his 6.5-4.5 victory over Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 Bonn.

The next world championship will be in 2012, where Anand will play against the winner of an eight-player candidates’ match. The eight players are:

Veselin Topalov (loser of this match)
Gata Kamsky (loser of the 2009 challenger match)
Levon Aronian (winner of the 2008-2010 FIDE Grand Prix)
Boris Gelfand (winner of 2009 World Cup)
Magnus Carlsen (highest rated player in the world)
Vladimir Kramnik (2nd highest rated player in the world)

Note: the 1st and 2nd highest rated players in the world is determined by averaging the July 2009 and January 2010 ratings

To date only six (the players above) of the eight have been determined. One slot will be nominated by the sponsors, while the final slot will be the second placer in the 2008-2010 FIDE Grand Prix (Aronian is already guaranteed first place). The final tournament of the 2008-2010 FIDE Grand Prix is currently being held in Astrakhan (that’s in Southern European Russia on the left bank of the Volga Rivera -- a very historical place, this used to be the capital of the Golden Horde, the great Mongolian invasion armies of the 13th and 14th centuries). Only after its completion can we determine who the overall 2nd placer is.

Let us now go to the Anand-Topalov match itself.

Everybody treats the world championship cycle very seriously and of course the match for the most coveted title in chess starts way before the first move is played. We are not only talking about the chess aspect, where both sides choose their seconds and prepare their opening schemes and physical preparation several months ahead.

There is also the political side -- the management teams of both players try to irritate the heck out of each other. I remember in the pre-glasnost and perestoika period in the USSR when the Soviet delegation elevated the science of irritation to an art form. For example, during Karpov’s peak, if his matches were scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m. then they would ask for it to be moved to 5:30 or 4:30 for some obscure reason, and then refuse to budge from that position. Or they would object to the presence of someone in the opposing camp’s delegation and demand that he be excluded.

Just before the Anand-Topalov match started the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajîkull erupted with a large ash plume (due to magma coming out under ice) on April 15. The ash cloud was significant enough to shut down airports across more than 20 European countries, many of which only began to reopen on April 20. Since the match was being held in Sofia, on Topalov’s home turf, the eruption did not affect him at all.

However, Anand was still traveling and he got stuck in Frankfurt airport on the 15th. This was a big predicament, as the match was due to start on the 23rd and there was no indication as to when the airports would reopen.

Vishy’s requests for a four-day postponement of the match fell on deaf ears until FIDE intervened and granted him a one-day reprieve. Anand managed to book a bus from Amstelveen, Netherlands, which agreed to take them on a 1,000-kilometer trip to Budapest from where they transferred to Sofia.

By the way, to be fair, Anand’s team also had some weird requests, like asking for a special curtain from Germany which would prevent eye contact between the players. This was complied with by the organizers without problems.

Whether the long overland trip affected Vishy’s form I am not sure, but in the first game of the match he forgot his opening preparation and got comprehensively routed in 34 moves (discussed in Chess Piece of May 3, 2010).

Anand bounced back with victories in games 2 and 4 to take the lead, followed by a series of hard-fought draws. The Pride of India temporarily abandoned the Gruenfeld and used the solid Slav to hold off his aggressive opponent, but the long grinds he had to endure taxed his endurance and Topalov’s tremendous fighting qualities enabled him to level the score in game 8.

There followed three more draws before this 12th and final game.

Topalov, Veselin (2805) -- Anand, Vishwanathan (2787) [D56]
WCh Sofia (12), 11.05.2010
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Game, set and match. Nice game to finish a match with. Talks of Vishy’s lack of mental toughness resurfaced when he missed a certain draw in game 8 and lost in the endgame. Then in the next game he overlooked several wins and had to settle for the draw; but this win should erase that perception. For all intents and purposes, Anand came, he saw, and he conquered. Veni Vidi Vishy.

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