World Chess Match Game 5 Drawn: Carlsen, Anand both 2.5

Hello chess blog friends, the World Chess Championship 2014 is evenly poised with both Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand at 2.5 each after Game 5 was drawn. The main stage in Sochi ended with a draw, but there was excitement elsewhere - Russian chess juniors got prizes and the talented Shakhriyar Mamedyarov bulldozed his way to winning the Tal Chess Memorial which was held in Sochi over two days in blitz format. The Tal Chess Memorial is expected to be back in classical format, in Sochi, next year. Alexander Grischuk was second.

Shakhriyar shared his championship match impressions with RCF's Eteri Kublashvili:
“I think the third game was very important. Exactly such victory Anand missed in Chennai. He is a different person in Sochi, and I think the match will be very tense. Anand's play also proves it. Actually, he played quite well this year, while Carlsen, in my opinion, did not. So this is going to be an exciting match. I will not be surprised in Anand wins.”

Peter Svidler shared his opinion on the game:“Today I worked in a commentary booth with Ian Nepomniachtchi, and the players made us look fools in the end! For at least 15 minutes we talked about how unpleasant this ending is for black, when there is a white pawn on a2 and black pawn on b6. We explained in detail that if you remove all the rooks, it might be simply hopeless for black, and even with a single pair of rooks defending is tough. So we thought Vishy will play it on for at least two hours, and paused to have a snack. However, as soon as we left the booth, Vishy traded the queenside pawns! This came as a big surprise for us, however, Anand surely calculated everything and decided that black consolidates, and white's winning chances are non-existent.

Magnus Carlsen did push and push for long to eke out any advantage from the long-drawn endgame, but Anand stood his ground and stuck to safe play instead of taking any risks. The show moves on to Game 6 being played on Saturday. Magnus has White in both Games 6 and 7. Watch all the action live at the official website. You can replay Game 5 with Chess King.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal chess blog
at www.chessqueen.com
Don't miss Chess Queen™
YouTube Channel