WCh G6: another Catalan, another draw

The sixth game of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov ended in a draw today. For the third time a Catalan came on the board, and after an interesting fight between Anand's knight pair and Topalov's bishop pair a drawish ending was played out till move 58 where a move repetition again brought a silent end to the game. 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.

Score

Anand, V	2787	0	1	½	1	½	½							3½
Topalov,V	2805	1	0	½	0	½	½							2½

Videos

If you can't see the sixth video in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We've contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here's another copy of the game 6 video:

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Game 6

On the hottest day so far in Sofia (about 26° C) many citizens could be found parading on the street, celebrating Labour Day, which as in many countries is a national holiday in Bulgaria.



Instead of celebrating what was orginally planned as a rest day, Anand and Topalov chose for labour instead: they played the longest game in the match so far! It was another Catalan and again soon the queens went off. Both sides had two rooks but Anand ended up with tho knights, and Topalov with two bishops.

A special detail of this game is the route Nb1 followed. It went Nb1-a3-c4-e5-d7-c5-b7-d6-c8-a7-c6-b4-d5-b6 before it was captured! Amazingly, the knight never went to a single square more than once.



Besides, in this game the two white knights together probably broke a World Championship record of thirteen consecutive knight moves. As FenderTwang mentioned on the Chess.FM broadcast today, in the 10th match game Tal-Botvinnik 1961 a single white knight played ten moves in a row.

For a long time it remained unclear which side was better, though these knights did seem to provide some initiative. After one knight was traded for the black-squared bishop, on move 37 Topalov sacrificed a pawn to maximize his piece activity. By returning his b-pawn, Anand liquidated to a position with three against three on the kingside, which he held to a draw comfortably.

Game viewer by ChessTempo




















In the meantime the organizers also received an official apology from the electricity company CEZ for the suspension of power supply during the fifth game:

To Boyko Borisov Prime-Minister of Bulgaria Kirsan Ilyumzhinov President of The World Chess Federation Traicho Traikov Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism Svilen Neykov Minister of Physical Education and Sport Stefan Segriev President of The Bulgarian Chess Federation

Subject: Electricity break in the central part of the capital at street’s area of: Rakovska Str., Slavianska Str., Aksakov Str., Tzar Osvoboditel Str., 6-ti Septemvri Str., Ivan Vazov Str.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Today, 04/30/2010, at 15.35 h due to an accident occurred through the cable lines in the central part of the city, the consumers in the area of the streets mentioned above remained without power supply. At 16:05 h, the electricity power supply was restored with a priority for the Central Military Club, "Salza i smiah " theater and the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism. The rest users were fed at 16:30 h.

We'd like to apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused to you, and send our special apologies to the participants and organizers of the match for the World Chess Championship Anand-Topalov. We want to assure you that despite the busy traffic, our teams have made every possible effort and succeeded in restoring the electricity power supply as quickly as possible.

The main reason for such incidents is the outdated and inadequate network capacity in the central part, which needs substantial investment to improve it state.

Realizing our responsibility for providing quality services, we assure you that we will offer adequate investment plan for approval by the competent authorities, with the help of which the problems with the electricity supply of the capital should be resolved in the long term perspective.

Sincerely, Ivan Kovarzhchik, Executive Director CEZ Distribution Bulgaria AD

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• 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' first piece for Crikey
• Rogers' second piece 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