Magnus Carlsen – World Chess Champion
By GM Lubomir Kavalek
At the beginning Carlsen seemed slightly nervous playing the most important
match in his career, but during the Games Three and Four he sensed that
Anand could be vulnerable. "I started to settle in," Carlsen said.
"I was able to play to my strength."
Anand lost the next two games with blunders in the rook endgames. Losing
Game Five was a big disappointment, the lowest point in the match for him.
"My play never got going." A blunder in Game Nine sealed his fate.
"When it rains, it pours," Anand described his mistakes.
 |
| Game Nine was the most dramatic game of the
match. |
Carlsen likes to put his opponents under continuous pressure. With his
relentless play to win, Carlsen "drives his opponents into errors,"
according to the English grandmaster Jonathan Speelman. "You have to
keep pushing," Carlsen said about his play against Anand and added
with a smile: "I would like to take some responsibility for his mistakes."
Carlsen managed to limit Anand's computer preparation to minimum. "The
games were decided mostly on the chessboard," he said. As we have predicted
in one of the
previous
columns, the Berlin Defense was played by both players:
The Berlin Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6) is always a possibility,
hovering over any king-pawn player like a sword of Damocles. Both Carlsen
and Anand are capable of using it. It was played in the first world championship
match William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort in 1886. In 2000, Vladimir
Kramnik played the Berlin and ended Garry Kasparov's world championship
reign.
It was the most popular defense, appearing in 30 percent of the games.
All three games were drawn.
In the last game Carlsen tried to play solidly without creating any weaknesses.
At one point he decided to shut it down and force a draw that gave him the
world crown. He did it with a nice knight sacrifice. The shortest decisive
world championship match in chess history was over. In 1910, Emanuel Lasker
and Carl Schlechter tied their match 5-5.
Images by JM Mahesh and Anastasiya Karlovich
