World Chess Match Sochi 2014 G10 Drawn: Can Anand force Tiebreak in two Games?

Hello chess blog friends, in tennis terminology you could say World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen is on match-point. Carlsen leads the World Chess Championship after 10 games 5.5 - 4.5 against Viswanathan Anand. Saturday being a rest day, Games 11 and 12 will be played on Sunday and Monday. Carlsen could win Game 11 and retain his title or even draw both the last two games to remain World Chess Champion. Vishy Anand has to win one game to draw level and draw one game to force a tiebreak. Of course, if Anand wins both the last two games, he becomes the World Champion.

Before we talk about the Game 10 draw - here are the tiebreak rules:The Match is played over a maximum of twelve games and the winner of the match shall be the first player to score 6.5 points or more. If the scores are level after the twelve games, after a new drawing of colors, four tie-break games shall be played. The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move. In case the match is still drawn, a match of 2 games shall be played with a time control of 5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move. In case of a level score, another 2-game match will be played to determine a winner. If still there is no winner after 5 such matches (total 10 games), one sudden-death game will be played.

Meanwhile, Game 10 was drawn in 32 with Anand unable to do much with Magnus Carlsen's Gruenfeld Defence as in Game 1. Anand played the Russian Variation though both players said at the press conference that the position needs to be further studied and evaluated. You can replay the game with Chess King.

Score Carlsen 5.5 - Anand 4.5.Sunday 23rd November 2014. Game 11 Carlsen vs Anand. If Carlsen were to win this game he would win the whole match.

The seven-time Russian champion Peter Svidler shared his thoughts about the game:
“Unfortunately they didn't go for my pet line in Gruenfeld, so I was little bit unsure about the correct move orders and stuff. I play 7…а6 and haven't played 7…Na6 for quite a while, so my book knowledge is a bit outdated. However, we discussed the opening with Ian Nepomniachtchi, who also analyzed it at home and with computer. Carlsen showed an interesting new idea 15…Bxe4, which can be critically tested only by 16.d6 instead of 16.Qс1. Probably they either missed or underestimated the drawing tendencies after Black's strong reply 16…Qf6!

Later it felt like Vishy had some microscopic pressure, but a slightest inaccuracy from White, and the game immediately became dead even. We were a bit surprised by 24.Rd2 – first of all, one can even play 24.а3, but the strongest is 24.Rfe1 – the а2-pawn is not so crucial, so we can ask Black a couple of concrete questions first. Yes, after 24…Nc6 White's advantage is not easy to prove, but without the e-file it becomes simply impossible. When Vishy realized it, he quickly forced a draw, otherwise White could end up being worse. Of course, there was 26.g3, preventing 26…Be5, but it is hard to believe White can squeeze anything of it.”
You can read a nice report by Vladimir Barsky at the official website as well.

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