Blogs
Peculiarities of chess styles.

Peculiarities of chess styles.

VB84
| 7

 It seems that playing strength of top-GM’s also depends on position’s character. Two days ago we saw how Veselin plays in sharp attacking position - the game was played at champion’s level. And yesterday the opponents changed Queens and played a calm endgame. Searching for initiative, Topalov gave some pawns and lost quickly. I can put the exclamation mark to the Vishy's maneuver

  

 

15.Qa3, not for its chess merits but for Anand's good psychology feeling. Topalov likes to play with initiative but it isn't effective in the endgame. Boring positions where one has to make defending moves are not in style of Veselin.
Earlier Vladimir Kramnik during the famous World championship match in Elista 2006 liked to get calm positions, and that strategy was successful. Alexander Motylev, the second of Kramnik, annotated one of the game of that match and wrote 2…e6 is mistake, because Catalon’s type of positions it Kramnik's territory, where he has extra advantages.
Coming back to the game: yesterdays’s game was a revelation for me, I thought that in the endgame only Black could pretend to advantage. I have to note that Anand's play was excellent -for example:

 

 

 21.f4!, preventing the black pawns from connecting in future. Then Topalov started to make mistakes like 24...h5 and 25…Ne3.

Congrats to Anand with the good revenge!