So I've been thinking about Anand's strategy for tomorrow's game with the whites. Does he continue to play d4 expecting Gelfand to continue with the Gruenfeld? And proceed with some new variation? Or does he play his well prepared surprise now, with a totally different opening....maybe e4 or something else?

I think it is soon for surprises.Anand will wait Gelfand to risk and to do that he has to show him that he is not willing to risk himself.The more Gelfand sees Anand playing safe the more intense the matter of decision become for him.Should he risk or go for the rapids?Anand will keep his good novelties for the 2 last white(or Black) games(if he has any).

    Of course all these might change if something goes wrong and we have a win for either side.The one that lost has to bring the "big weapons" on the battle.Until we have a win the battle will be mostly a battle of patience and a well calculated and timed surprise.

maybe in the future, the player who play white should draw from the hat that annouce what move he is to make out of the possible 20 moves and play from there ! ... interesting.... 

kco, how about this rule: do not allow to play the same opening more than once or twice in a match?

But how would you define what an 'opening' is? How many of the first moves would have to be the same? And also what about transpositions - different move orders resulting in the same positions?

madhacker I believe that not allowing to repeat first two halfmoves will be enough to add some variety to the game.

Not  bad idea at all!!!Makes things very interesting.

Seriously? So if I start the first game with 1.d4, and you reply 1...d5, then in the third game when I have white again and I play 1.d4 again, you are not allowed to play 1...d5?

This would just result in inferior moves being played... That is unless players find ways around it which they inevitably would. For example, if you wanted to play the semi-slav against my 1.d4, you could start with d5, c6, e6, Nf6 all resulting in the same position.

I think the 'variety' has to come from within and trying to impose it artificially would mess the game up. Eventually someone is going to have to take some risk unless they are both happy to settle it on the blitz games, which I doubt somehow. Let's see how the game goes today. I tend to think that the next time Anand has white, in game 6, he might try something else, as he's got nothing really so far with his white opening.

To me it isn't one of the more exciting title matches this far, and it's unusual with many draws at the start. Anand-Topalov had three decisive games in the first four games, Anand-Kramnik had three decisive in the first six, and Kramnik's three previous title matches all had at least one decisive result in the first two games. Excitement isn't just about decisive games though but the start has been rather dry here.

madhacker, I meant that both first halfmoves should not be repeated. Or they can be repeated but only twice in a match. So I am fine to play 1.d4 two times, and you are fine to reply with 1...d5 twice.This means that you have to plan your opening move strategy for the match, because you've got only a limited number of tries before your favourite opening sort of 'expires' :D

Ok, so if two games go 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5, and in the next game you play 1. d4 e6 2. e4, can I then play 2. d5?

This seems dead overcomplicated to me.

madhacker, yes you can, but you don't have to. Anyway it was just a brainstorming idea. Let's hope that today's game will be quite intriguing without such kludges.

                              GAME FIVE

 Good morning! It was nice to wake up to all the interesting comments and information in this thread. I, like everyone else, would like to see some decisive games, and perhaps we'll start with today's game! After the last day-off, Anand and Gelfand played the game of the match thus far, in game three, and I expect to see a tense competition today. 

I'm having a nice cup of spiced chai and a brownie. It's an overcast day where I'm at, with rain expected. Great day to cuddle up to the world chess championship

Hi trysts...top of the morning to you...now pray tell, what is spiced chai? A type of tea maybe?

Hi, jesterville! Yes, it's a spicey tea

Hooray ! e4 !

They open with the Sicilian defence. Joel Lautier is today's commentator at the home site. I've got a good feeling about this game

It's a Sicilian defence, Pelikan opening. Whoops sorry, Sveshnikov opening.

wow...1.e4 1...c5  This will be great.