Anand misses gilt-edged chance
DISAPPOINTING Indian challenger fails to spot Carlsen’s blunder, loses sixth game
SOCHI (RUSSIA): In a moment, computer evaluation swung from advantage white to advantage black. “Oh my god,” someone shrieked in the media enclosure. World chess champion Magnus Carlsen had just made his 26th move — it was a blunder, rarely seen at this level of competition, which gave Viswanathan Anand an opportunity to turn the game, and perhaps the match, too, on its head.
But the five-time world champion overlooked the best move, and eventually lost the game.
Carlsen noticed the opportunity that he had given Anand immediately after making the mistake. He said he panicked and might not have been able to keep a poker face for long, but Anand made his move within a minute, throwing away the gift.
“Sometimes when you are not expecting a gift, you don’t take it,” Anand said, visibly disappointed with the miss. It was a “pretty terrible game”, he added. Carlsen said the tables would have completely turned and he could only fight for a draw had Anand seized the advantage. Anand, too, later noticed what he had missed. His defence thereafter wasn’t accurate and in a little over an hour ran out of resources to fight on.
It was clear from Anand’s looks that he noticed what he had missed, US GM Hikaru Nakamura said on Twitter. “Matches turn on moments like that,” British GM Nigel Short said on Twitter, recalling “a hideous double blunder” from his own world title match against Gary Kasparov in London in 1993.
“But this is potentially more serious,” he said, adding that Anand’s miss was “almost as bad as dropping Rohit Sharma on four runs”. He was referring to Rohit’s record-setting 264 at the Eden.
As the players take a break on Sunday, Susan Polgar said Anand must forget this game to be able to stage a comeback in the remaining half of the match.
After Saturday’s win, Carlsen leads 3.5-2.5. At the half-way stage last year, Anand trailed Carlsen by two points. Experts criticised Anand’s choice of opening on Saturday.
Though solid, it was widely seen as too passive, which allowed Carlsen to settle into a kind of position which he normally handles well. “Pretty horrible opening...negative and passive,” Short said on Twitter.