Thanks for the link, brabo. I'm amazed you think most IMs will have anything to do with tablebases, though. I'd wager that fewer than one in ten Brit IMs has that site or a similar one bookmarked. In general, OTB players tend to find it more fun to guess, I think.

Presumably Svidler's proposed ...Rb3 instead of Anand's ...Ra3 doesn't actually lose to c7 Kd7?; Rb8, does it, since Black can meet c7 with Rc3, which I suspect may well actually draw.

I don't think btw, based on some emails I exchanged with a GM over the last few days, that 61 Kg3 wins 'trivially'; it took us a day or two to sort it out, even assuming we have it right now. Maybe it depends what you call trivial.

Gelfand went there and played the Grunfeld and the Sveshnikov, for God's sake. That's hardly the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Goodness, I'm getting soooooo tired of all this whinging.

Gelfand went there and played the Grunfeld and the Sveshnikov, for God's sake. That's hardly the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Not only that, but when he was one up with five to play - just three Black draws away from becoming champion of the world - he STILL went with the Grunfeld (or KID/Benoni/whatever). Now OK, that was a terrible decision IMHO and one main reason he's not world champion today, but still, you can't say he played cynically: he absolutely didn't. I can't think of another player in history who wouldn't have gone with the QGD or similar in game eight (OK, maybe Bronstein).

As to the critics complaining about game 12 ending early, they need to get a grip. How many players would have had the courage and imagination to make Gelfand's positional pawn sacrifice in such a decisive game? None of the commentators even mentioned it as a possibility.

So Anand sacked it off early when he could have played a few more moves so that the draw was clear. So what? Jeez, celebrate what we had, why doncha? If you can't see what a fine game this was, it's not the players; it's you.

It's true that Anand is clearly suffering a crisis which he may or may not get through - one look at the videocam tells anyone who also saw him during the Kramnik match that. And that affected his play, but he too dug in, showed a lot of courage and did what champions do; when everything was going badly he still managed to find a way to win.

I don't remotely share the view that this was a terrible match. Both players came out with a lot of credit for me; Gelfand in particular played if anything with excessive gallantry; there's something of Carl Schlechter about him. Let's hope he doesn't starve in an attic.

People have to understand that this isn't the Harlem Globetrotters. Professional sport simply cannot work on the basis that the competitors factor into their decisions what the public wants to see. If they do the sport is diluted and cheapened. The fascination of watching sport is always to see the competitors using the strategies and tactics they think will give them the best chance of winning. If they're doing that and the public aesthetic isn't being satisfied, the answer is to change the rules. Criticising the players is puerile; it misses the entire point of sport.

I am always reminded on these occasions of the words of Alan Durban, a manager in days gone by of the football team Stoke City, then as now an excruciating side to watch. After obviously playing for and failing to achieve a turgid 0-0 draw, Durban was criticised in a press conference and famously replied, 'We are trying to stay in this division. If you want entertainment, go to the circus.'.

Durban was vilified by the press and public for this remark; Stoke achieved the lowest points total ever in the top flight at the time and were relegated, and Durban was sacked and never worked in football again. 

Still and all, he was right. Sport is entertainment indeed, but the fun doesn't consist in watching the players strive to entertain you.