The 2012 World Championship of Chess!

everyone missed that move...everyone was surprised,even the commentators missed it.it's easy to miss subtle moves like that...after all,they're human.

I hope it's not fixed.

Leko and nepomniatchi also didn't see that coming. You cannot blame gelfand ,who is playing under tremendous pressure of a world championship match.

I was listening to the commentators as well, and never saw Qf2. That move was brilliant!

17 moves, at least half of them interesting, & Qf2 not boring at all ! 

In chessdom.com GM Balogh Csaba saw immediatelly that 14...Qf6 was a blunder.If he saw in some seconds that 14...Qf6 was a blunder how could Gelfand not see it? 

It was a great game. The ice in this match has clearly broken so the rest will be fun to watch. Anand has to fix his Slav and Gelfand has to watch out for the novelty that Anand clearly prepared today but didn't get to use.

I think the only explanation is nerves and cracking under pressure. In severe cases of nervousness, thinking ability is extremely impaired, and people can make unbelievably bad mistakes that they would simply never make under normal circumstances. Kramnik missing a one-move mating threat against Deep Fritz is another example of something that even a 2000-rated player would not miss under normal circumstances.

sapientdust 

Anyone think it might go boring again now the scores are level....

I think Gelfand will collapse psychologically.I see at least one more Anand win in the next 3 games.

Being way out here in the Pacific North American time zone (we are 8 hours slow on Greenwich) I get the WCC news fairly late, though still early here! LOL. So I go to my computer to see what happened today in Moscow and...WHAT???!!! Game 8 is over in 17 moves via a Gelfand blunder??? Well this is certainly NOT boring! LOL . Yes I agree with poster above, a classic it will be in the annals of the WCC. I think now that Gelfand will collapse, this is just too much of a blow for a challenger who was really fortuante to even be here anyway. He's played flawless up to now but this may have been all he has in his "tank". We shall see on Wednesday! Great chess.

why was Gelfand 'fortunate' to even be here? he spanked the others in the candidates match, today just proves he's human, probably had a late night last night. he'll be back

Late night????What do you mean?He was engaged in non  chess-related  night activities???

Charlotte's obviously found out where he's staying.

Personally I think Gelfand will recover. Anand got lucky and he knows it. I don't think this is necessary the resurgence of a great champion "back to his best". I hope Gelfand recovers anyway - I'm rooting for the underdog.

I believe the 2 players are equal.But today's game maybe indicates that Gelfand can't handle the pressure.Probably he has never lost in 17 moves ever in his life and that happens after he took lead in the match , a lead that could be enough to give him the title.He knows he was that close in winning the title but now he has to start over again.The day off certainly will help him but he has to face an even greater psychological pressure from now, his bad self.I really would like to know what he is thinking. 

Gelfand looked a bit too overconfident coming off his win and tried to play Anand head on instead of his normal style of chess.  Anand is way too good to play in the rough and tumble type chess head on. 

Gelfand next game will go back to his normal self and Anand will try to drag him into contact chess.  It should be interesting to see who prevails in future games.

Brilliant game! Perhaps one for the history books! Still too early to tell, but perhaps it might make one of the "Top 100 chess games of all-time".

I heard one of the commentators say that it appeared that black (Gelfand) might pull off two victories in a row after move number 10 and then Anand surprised everyone with that trap/trick.

What a way for Anand to redeem himself in this match.