He took forever to play ...c4!? but it might have been worth it if the move is OK. Gives him a bit more fresh air instead of defending the positional pawn sac in a long manoeuvring game.

Fascinating start to the game today - new positional pawn sac from Anand who is blitzing the moves and clearly in his preparation. This is going to be a tough test for Gelfand I think dealing with this over the board.

Mr Kramnik giving his seal of approval for the pre-match tie-break idea!

instead of all this nonsense why not just toss a coin, less hassle for all involved. Anyway its not drawn yet, still one game left and it may be Gelfands toughest test yet

Didn't the Armageddon almost happen in Toppy-Kramnik, our favourite match? To be honest, Armageddon, 5 minute, 20 minute, rapid, whatever, its all the same to me. A World Ch match cannot be decided by any of that, but that seems to be what its come to.

I cannot fathom this talk agaist draw odds. Who is to reign if a championship match ends in a draw, if not the present champion? Therefore unless we admit the possibility of a match that never ends, the present champion must enjoy draw odds.

Secondly, number of wins cannot possibly break a tie in a two-player event.

[quote author=417F6B617E7D644D54737C120 link=1336440203/276#276 date=1338138383]The problem with having a tie breaker at the start of the match is that it gives one player draw odds.

This was considered too great an advantage when the defending champion was given draw odds, and it's still too great an advantage. [/quote]

Well, it was apparently considered too great an advantage for Fischer but not for Botvinnik or Kasparov so it hasn't been a too big deal...

Anyway, as long as the tiebreak is decided by blitz or rapid games, one player will usually feel that a drawn match is no problem as he expects to win the tiebreak anyway - [i]thus, draw odds already exists[/i]. Even the underdog may feel that his best chance is in the tiebreak, so if the tiebreak is already decided against him, he can throw caution to the wind in the match.

Besides, if the tiebreak needs to be tiebreaked then the Armageddon game decides, where Black has the draw odds anyway, plus tired players and a lot of nervous tension. The strain should be smaller if you know that you can still win after losing the tiebreak.

Just imagine Chelsea - Bayern, 
If C wins the prebreak Bayern could allow themselves to attack even harder in the game. 
If B wins the prebreak then Chelsea would've been forced to play football...

It wouldn't affect the combatants much, but the result would be much better for the audience.

In terms of motivation, it may even be a psychological disadvantage to win the prebreak, even in chess, e.g: Schlechter, Bronstein and Karpov have all failed to draw the last game to win the match.