Moscow: Viswanathan Anand crashed to defeat against Boris Gelfand of Israel in the seventh game of the ongoing World Chess Championship being played at the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
The reigning World Champion was strangely error prone in the last stages of the game, just when it appeared that the game was heading for a draw.
After seven Games, Gelfand now leads the 12-Game Match series with a score of 4-3. The player reaching 6.5 points will be crowned Champion. Interestingly it was after 19 years that 43-year-old Gelfand scored a victory over 42-year-old Anand in Classical chess.
In the next five games Anand will wield Whites in three games, starting with the eighth game tomorrow evening. Anand now needs a victory to bounce back into the Match.
Anand has steadfastly stuck to the Slav defence in all the four Black games he has played so far.
From a theoretical view point, it was another interesting duel in the Slav and so far Anand had demonstrated that with the Black pieces he had established a pretty comfortably zone.
Interestingly it was Anand who tried to keep the position alive with some not so routine moves initially while Gelfand appeared more than content to keep his position solid and steer towards a draw.
Anand first made an error on the 23rd turn with a pawn advance on the King flank but a tactical mistake by him on the 25th turn put Gelfand firmly in the saddle. He forced the exchange of queens and very soon had his rook firmly entrenched on the 7th rank. Anand’s bishop was hopelessly tied down and though he desperately tried for some counter play by sacrificing his bishop, Gelfand now smelling victory, kept up the attack with his rook and two knights threatening check-mate. Anand resigned on the 38th turn in a hopeless position.