Sunday 25 April 2010

Anand gets snapped

The 2010 World Chess Championship certainly got off to a spectacular start with Topalov's crushing victory over Viswanathan Anand. The games was over fairly quickly, with the first 20 moves following established theory. On move 23 Anand slowed down, possibly trying to remember his preparation, but the move he made 23. ... Kf7 was a mistake that was punished by an immediate knight sacrifice. Although Anand then thought for another 30 minutes over his 24th move he was already losing, and the game was all over by move 30.
As I write this, Game 2 has already started. As with most of the recent World Championship matches, the status of live coverage is unclear (due to various demands for payments from the organisers), by Chessdom are certainly carrying live coverage and analysis at this link. For those on the eastern seaboard of Australia, the games are starting at the semi-reasonable time of 10:00 pm.

Topalov,Veselin - Anand,Viswanathan [D87]
2010 World Chess Championship, Game 1, 24.04.2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 0-0 10.0-0 Na5 11.Bd3 b6 12.Qd2 e5 13.Bh6 cxd4 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.cxd4 exd4 16.Rac1 Qd6 17.f4 f6 18.f5 Qe5 19.Nf4 g5 20.Nh5+ Kg8 21.h4 h6 22.hxg5 hxg5 23.Rf3 Kf7 (D)
24.Nxf6 Kxf6 25.Rh3 Rg8 26.Rh6+ Kf7 27.Rh7+ Ke8 28.Rcc7 Kd8 29.Bb5 Qxe4 30.Rxc8+ 1-0

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