Saturday 18 October 2008

2008 WCC - Game 3

The back and forth in Game 2 was repeated in Game 3 of the Anand v Kramnik World Chess Championship match, but this time Anand converted his advantage to take a 2-1 lead in the match. In a very exciting game Kramnik forced the pace with a short-term pawn sacrifice, followed by a piece sacrifice. On the defensive Anand was forced to return the material, and Kramnik was 2 pawns ahead. Unfortunately this came at the cost of King safety, and with his remaining pieces well placed Kramnik's King was chased across the board. Anand missed a quicker win on move 33 than what was played in the game (Fritz claims a mate in 19 after 33. ... Bxd3+) but won White's Queen and won without too much trouble.
In terms of the match this is a pretty significant result for Anand. Not only is it an early victory in a short match, it also helps Anand recover from Game 2, where he might have felt he missed a chance to be one up already. And probably the most significant feature of this win is according to IM Andrew Martin on chesscube.com, Anand hasn't beaten Kramnik with the black pieces in 17 years! So if Anand's strategy was based in winning with White, he already has a free point under his belt.



No comments: