Smyslov_Fan wrote on 11/13/14 at 14:06:59:

Well in the worldchampionship of 1993 between Kasparov and Short they agreed to play some very weird exhibition games so I would not say never.
See
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/93ks$$.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1993
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070668

MartinC wrote on 11/13/14 at 10:45:59:

I figure "wearing down Anand over the course of the match" plays into the decision as well.

DenVerdsligeRejsende wrote on 11/13/14 at 09:26:44:


Yes, the link is: http://www.nrk.no/sport/

The Danish main chess page has the two links here: http://www.skak.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=720:remis-i-4-pa...

Where did you find the stream for Norwegian broadcast, and is there replay? Is it on NRK somewhere?

Psychology surely plays a role. On chessvibes was mentioned that Anand used 6 minutes for his 18th move in game 3 while he confessed later that his preparation still went several moves further. 
http://www.chess.com/news/vishy-anand-levels-score-in-game-3-in-sochi-world-cham...
The writer hints that possible Anand just pretended to be out of book. Carlsen maybe was blinded by this act as he responded without any deep thought (45 seconds is reported) with a probably losing error. Coincidence or not.

On my blog I wrote a few successful examples from my own practice to pretend out of book: http://chess-brabo.blogspot.be/2014/03/camouflage.html

interesting comments.

up to Carlsen to step up to the plate now, and that is not easy in the circumstances.

LostTactic wrote on 11/12/14 at 18:44:50:


I don't think this is very likely. I think i remember a few tournaments in the last years were Carlsen started off not doing great and surpassed everyone in the 2nd half of the tournament. Also after losing two games in a row (somewhen this year? one game was a Berlin against Caruana, the other game was against Karjakin or Radjabov?) he came back. Obviously losing the next game would still be a major blow. I think Carlsen realizes that Anand might after all still be a possible threat to his title.

Dink Heckler wrote on 11/12/14 at 11:40:16:


It's just theory--my understanding was that this was considered more-or-less a drawing line for a while (the whole ...Nbd7, ...c6, and immediate ...Ba6 line), but I haven't kept up with it over the last few years.  There have been a few high level games played in it over the years, the most recent with the pawn getting to c7 was Aronian - Adams 2013, drawn.

I don't know all of the theoretical developments on this line, but Carlsen was following established theory up to a point, and then his preparation seems to have failed him somehow, he got some crazy inspiration, forgot his prep, never looked at this line, who knows?  

Edit: calling it a drawing a line might be a bit extreme, but I think it's been considered more or less equal for some time now.  Obviously the players at the very top have their own view of things, which is different than what gets disseminated to rest of us at times.