Viswanathan Anand Retains World Title / Anand World Champion Again

Viswanathan Anand kept the World title after a 24-move draw in the 11th and penultimate game of the 12-game World Chess Championship final in Bonn, on Wednesday.

The Indian, playing with white pieces against Russia's Vladimir Kramnik, took an unbeatable 6.5-4.5 lead to retain his crown.

The game opened in a Sicilian Najdorf, as Anand was expected to go for a draw and Kramnik attempting to thwart all such attempts to try and force a victory to keep himself in the match and take it to the 12th game to force a tie-breaker.

The game ended in a draw as Kramnik failed to find a way for victory despite trying to complicate the game.

Even as Anand was celebrating his triumph and meeting the media, he received a message from Rajendra S Pawar, chairman NIIT, which has had a long-standing relationship with the Grandmaster for the last 10 years.

Pawar, in a message from Delhi, said, "We congratulate NIIT MindChampion, Vishy Anand on becoming the undisputed World Chess champion.

"Anand has displayed a grand strategy in 2008 by choosing the games that he wanted to win, foregoing an important tournament like Bilbao to focus on and win the ultimate match with Kramnik."

Anand earlier won three games, the third, fifth and sixth and lost the 10th in a match that looked one-sided till Kramnik brought back some life with a win in 10th game.

In the 11th game, Anand needing only a draw, managed that in a game that had a 1. e4 start and led to a Sicilian-Najdorf, which Kramnik rarely plays.

Kramnik went all out for a win and tried to create wild and unstable positions to throw Anand off-guard, but the Indian Grandmaster was up to the task.

In fact, as Kramnik overstretched in a do-or-die battle, he actually allowed Anand greater play and may well have lost.

According to the pre-match rules, the two players share the purse of 1.5 million Euros equally.

Source : Rediff