Wch G7 drawn after tough fight

PeterDoggers

Updated: Aug 31, 2011, 2:50 AM | 0 | Chess Event Coverage

The seventh game of the World Championship match in Sofia, Bulgaria also ended in a draw. Challenger Veselin Topalov showed impressive opening preparation and put the World Champion under considerable pressure. However, Anand defended accurately and perhaps even missed a win after the time control. 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	½						4
Topalov,V	2805	1	0	½	0	½	½	½						3

Videos

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Game 7

Also in Sofia the day started with the sad news, brought by the Chief Arbiter, that Florencio Campomanes had passed away. Players and spectators all stood up and held a minute of silence in remembrance of the former FIDE President. Then Anatoly Karpov, who arrived in Sofia on Sunday, made the first move, and the game started.

For the first time in the match Topalov could force his will upon his opponent - well, at least for the opening phase. At the press conference the Bulgarian said that it was his second Ivan Cheparinov who had prepared the line for him. It involved an exchange sacrifice that had been played by Ivanchuk against Gelfand at the Amber tournament this year, but a slightly improved version. It soon turned into a piece for two strong pawns. While Topalov could play his first twenty moves without thinking, Anand spent about an hour.

12th World Champion arrived in Sofia on Sunday and gave a press conference half an hour after the start of the game. Above him, on the background, the game could be seen. Karpov started with 'it's one of the most interesting games of the match' - once a chess player, always a chess player

It looks like the World Champion defended accurately and in an ending with queen and knight versus queen and protected pawn, he might even have missed a win for one move. According to GM Sergey Shipov at Crestbook, 42.Qa4 might have led to a decisive advantage for White, as it stops d3-d2.

And so after seven games the score is 4-3 to Anand. Now, with five to go, Topalov has three Whites. Especially since Topalov survived his last two Black games, it's safe to conclude that... anything can happen.

In the mean time we received an answer from Tim Krabbé, whom we emailed about the record of knight moves. (As you'll remember Anand played thirteen consecutive knight moves in game 6.) Krabbé let us know that the absolute record of consecutive knight moves in an official game is Hecht-Suttles, Belgrade 1969, which we've added to the game viewer below.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The handshake before the first game of the second half

The playing hall with again not all seats taken...

...but among the spectators were Anatoly Karpov and Chairman / President of the Bulgarian Chess Federation Sergey Sergiev, who attended the start of the match

What started as another Catalan turned into a Bogo-Indian, according to the Chessbase program

Links (we keep updating this!)

Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

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