well how Carlsen dealt with 4. f3 is a real surprise. I've played these positions for ages and 7... ed5 8. e3 c4 always seemed to me like a mistake that someone without knowledge of theory would make, but Carlsen must know what he is doing...   

IMJohnCox wrote on 11/21/13 at 11:15:36:

I've seen more than one correspondence game where black plays 7...exd5 (Nxd5 just has to be better) and white wins

The official online engine was happy with black early on but now seems to have decided to offer a broadly non sensical line with its favourite 0 evaluation attached.
(An utterly implausible Na6/c7 and Ra <-> b1 repitition with white pawns on g5/h5 )

To be honest I'm not sure quite how powerful the hardware it is on is/how long they're giving it etc. The lines it has been suggest really have looked rather strange at times.
(Even when it was in more computer friendly positions than this in earlier games.).

I'd be very happy to have White here, but no doubt the engines will say something different. At least White is aiming in the right direction, Anand has got to be happy with this.

Dink Heckler wrote on 11/21/13 at 10:36:11:


Maybe he's confident that he can win a third point this way, not sure.

Predict a decisive result from this position, given the circumstances also. Very double-edged.

ErictheRed wrote on 11/20/13 at 18:48:02:

Totally agree.


IMJohnCox wrote on 11/20/13 at 17:48:41:

Great point--just think of Anand's blown opposite-color bishop endgame against Topalov, who hardly holds Karpovian terrors as an endgame player. But perhaps Anand did prepare this very thing, only to no avail: that would explain his willingness to go into such situations.

On the question of psychology, Anand lost both game five and game six because he gave up too early. He believed the rook ending with three against one was lost, and played too quickly. If you’d told him there was a draw there and he’d be executed on the spot if he didn’t find it, he’d have played differently, and that’s the performance state he should have been in, to use the jargon. And game six more or less the same; he relaxed too soon and so fell for this trick at all, and once he had he despaired and believed it was over. And the fact Carlsen believed the same thing both times – or so he said in the press conferences – contributed; these things cross the board. Sometimes it’s good to let them, sometimes not. You have to absorb the information, but not let it affect you.

That’s why Anand lost these games, because he wasn’t in the right state to find the right moves. That’s what people mean by psychology. And in my view he wasn’t in the right psychological state before the match; what happened hasn’t been any kind of surprise. Winning this sort of position is perhaps Carlsen’s biggest strength and losing them one of Anand’s biggest weaknesses. Preparation, psychological and otherwise, to stop it happening ought to have been his top priority before the match. And obviously either it hasn’t been, or whatever he’s done didn’t work. As Vlad would say, his preparation was insufficiently intellectual. It comes back to the fact that this match isn’t life and death to Anand, whereas for Carlsen losing is unthinkable. To overcome that difference in motivation, you need a big difference in class. When you don’t have that either, you’re a big underdog.