World Championship: 8th game drawn

Update: video added. If the World Championship match wasn't decided yet, it is now. With the white pieces Kramnik did manage to get a certain advantage but Anand just refuses to make big mistakes in Bonn, and so a not too exciting 8th game ended in a draw at move 39. With a 5.5-2.5 score, the match could be over on Sunday night.

"For the first time in the match I had a slightly better position, which was quite a relief," Kramnik started the press conference today, and this little sentence said more than everything else that would follow. The Indian wall Kramnik is trying to tear down is rock solid ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú seemingly made of even stronger material than Kramnik's own Berlin Wall in 2000! Where the Russian successfully countered Kasparov's attempts to win with White, it's Anand this time who comfortably equalizes in all his Black games - and even won two of them.

Again it was Anand who dictated play in the opening; his new approach in the - sometimes, but not today, very sharp - Vienna Variation of the Queen's Gambit was quite succesful after Kramnik quickly went for a line that wasn't considered the most critical by the journalists. After an inaccuracy by Anand, the Russian did get some pressure however, but it was't enough to create serious threats to Black's king. Anand's original way of centralizing rook and queen turned out to be more effective than clumsy.

Tomorrow is a rest day, and it might well be the last rest day. If Anand wins on Sunday the match is over, but two more draws are more likely and then the closing ceremony will be on Monday night. It doesn't feel great to have to write about Kramnik's loss at this stage already (not that we're biased to the challenger but simply because we had hoped for a more equal battle), but let's face it ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú it's over. Most of the journalists hope he'll win at least one game, to extend the match and to make it more exciting, but thus far the Russian hasn't come closer to winning chances than he has today.













Here's the 8th match game:



Match score:

Name

Nat.

Rtg

G01 14/10

G02 15/10

G03 17/10

G04 18/10

G05 20/10

G06 21/10

G07 23/10

G08 24/10

G09 26/10

G10 27/10

G11 29/10

G12 31/10

Anand

IND

2783

?Ǭ?

?Ǭ?

1

?Ǭ?

1

1

?Ǭ?

?Ǭ?

5?Ǭ?

Kramnik

RUS

2772

?Ǭ?

?Ǭ?

0

?Ǭ?

0

0

?Ǭ?

?Ǭ?

2?Ǭ?

Here's our playlist of videos. If the video of game 8 doesn't show, you can also view it here.



Links:

• Official website
• Foidos
• Game commentary at TWIC, Crestbook, Chesspro and Chessdom
• Videos by Europe-Echecs
• Mig Greengard blogging
• GM Ian Rogers blogging
• Dennis Monokroussos blogging
• Games in PGN provided by TWIC

(Note that the comments below this article started during our live coverage of the game)