Wch G3: Easy draw for 'Kramnikian' Anand

The third game of the World Championship match in Sofia today ended in a draw. Viswanathan Anand didn't go for the Grünfeld, but instead the World Champion seemed to be impersonating Topalov's nemesis Vladimir Kramnik and picked a variation of the Slav that the Russian had played against Topalov in Elista in 2006. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here's a summary:

The match will take place April 21 - May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

April 24 – 17.00 EEST (16:00 CET) - Game 1 April 25 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 2 April 26 – Rest Day April 27 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 3 April 28 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 4 April 29 – Rest Day April 30 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 5 May 1 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 6 May 2 – Rest Day May 3 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 7

May 4 – 15.00 EEST (12.00 UTC) - Game 8 May 5 – Rest Day May 6 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 9 May 7 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 10 May 8 – Rest Day May 9 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 11 May 10 – Rest Day May 11 – 15:00 EEST (14:00 CET) - Game 12 May 12 – Rest Day May 13 – Tie breaks

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Videos

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Game 3

We saw a very quiet game today, which included some psychological warfare from the World Champion. He went for a passive line in the Slav defence which Vladimir Kramnik had used to draw with Black against the same opponent in the infamous Elista match in 2006. Anand not only copied the variation, but also the main idea that was introduced by Kramnik back then: the early Rg8 move, to protect g7 and free the f8 bishop. After winning a Catalan ending with White, this relatively easy draw with Black definitely had some Kramnik flavour too:

Game viewer by ChessTempo


At the press conference Topalov had Antoaneta Stefanova sitting next to him, for doing Spanish translations. She stated that "it's in the regulations" that one can't offer a draw directly, but only through the arbiter. But this is not true; the official World Championship regulations don't mention the draw offer at all. Update: What she probably meant was that it is in the 'Sofia regulations'.

Links

• Official website
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers writing for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit's coverage