Newskarnataka-Chennai
Chennai: The World Chess Championship clash ended in a long-crumbled draw as the third game on Tuesday November 12 lasted for 51 moves. The first two games also had no real excitement, and were draw.
Chess champion Viswanathan Anand acting as a defender on Tuesday gave his Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen a tuff time despite playing with black pieces.
Anand seemed to have seized the initiative with some ‘spot on’ exercises in the midway through the game, but world number one Carlsen saved the situation with his counter play.
Carlsen confessed during the post-game conference, that he felt “scary” at some stage in the game.
He said, “I was worse, and then I probably made it more worse. I missed some simple things in the middle game, maybe I had enough play and it was not a disaster but it was scary.”
Irrespective of who wins, the match that is being conducted at Hotel Hyatt would create a history, for if Carlsen wins, he would herald a new era in World Championship whereas if Anand wins, he would be rated along with Garry Kasparov as the most successful world champion in modern chess.
The first game was played on Saturday, the second on Sunday with Carlsen having black pieces and until the third game on Tuesday the scores stand at 1.5 points for both players, although the five-time champion Anand will have the advantage of playing with white pieces in the fourth game on Wednesday.
Grandmaster RB Ramesh the commentator for the game said, “I was expecting that Carlsen would jump from one opening to another.”
In the Middle of the third game a major turn was witnessed when Carlsen deviated his attention to the King side by a queen sortie but Anand was alert enough. With some smart moves, the Indian ace then seized the initiative pushing the white queen to the edge of the board only to see Carlsen avert the danger with his counter play.
Later in the game, Carlsen got back on his hot-spot, by challenging play in form of a thematic central break through after which Carlsen was pretty much at ease.
However, the players sustained the battle almost till the two Bishops remained on board when the players signed the truce after 51 moves.
In the fourth game to be played on Wednesday it would be interesting to see if Anand will get his second white in the 12-game match that has Rs 14 crore as the prize fund.
