Candidates Matches 3rd - 27th May 2011

[Thomas Rendle]

Also I'm a bit worried that if White moves the knight from c3 Black will respond with b5. Suddenly the plan of Qc1 looks a little odd since White no longer has the option of Qa4.

[AustinElliott]

Woo-hoo

17 Bh6

I had been thinking Ben P's 17 Ne4 (heading for g5) and h4 (to prevent B playing ...h4 and to secure a White N outpost on g5) were the obvious candidate moves..

...but then, Gelfand is a bit better player than me.

17... Bh3

I'm thinking that if BOTH KBs come off and White to then play h4 it might begin to look a bit stodgy. But then if White were aiming for Q-side play, as per Tom R's suggestion, stodging the K-side might suit him. Though Black may have the option of playing ...h4 first.

Must admit I'd actually rather play B's position, if only because the moves to open the K-side are obvious (...h4 ....f5 - f4 ...Nd4)

[Thomas Rendle]

In fact I might well expect Qd1 here, claiming to have 'provoked' h5, and then Qa4 later.

[Thomas Rendle]

Ok, after Bh6 Bh3 the position is becoming less interesting. White is still nominally better as he can still play b4 later and attack b7 but in reality Black should hold the position very easily here. Another draw is on the cards.

[AustinElliott]

18. Re1

Opening the option of "retaining" the KB - which I guess is important for pressure on b7 - by Bh1, though not sure I'd fancy having the h3 Bishop staring at me if I were W. Possibly Re1 could be to provoke Black to start exchanging before White plays Bh1?

[Thomas Rendle]

Draw agreed.

[AustinElliott]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand - Draw Agreed.

Hmmph - just when I was gearing up for another commentary.

Shall have to go back to reading those dreary reports now.

[Phil Neatherway]

As opposed to waiting for all those dreary moves.

It's hardly an advert for competitive chess.

[AustinElliott]

As opposed to waiting for all those dreary moves.

It's hardly an advert for competitive chess.

It does remind me, speaking as an old fart, how unusual the late Bobby Fischer was in his pomp in rarely playing for a draw, or even agreeing them whilst there was still play in the position.

I guess the style here (and in other matches in the tournament?) is that White probes for an advantage in the opening (which here was basically just done by not using a standard move order, rather than with a big TN), but just cuts his losses and offers a quick-ish draw if he doesn't get an obvious edge. And Black accepts, anticipating that he will get the chance to do the same thing as White in the next game.

Given the small nos of games in the match, there is presumably a sense for the player with White (here Gelfand) of not wanting to "gamble" when you would have so few chances to recover if it were to go pear-shaped... Having said that, though, surely that will be even more marked in Gelfand's last game as White, which may be (in effect) sudden death? So wasn't this game almost Gelfie's last real chance to have a serious tilt at Grischuk? Seems to me this game just made a blitz finale more likely, which the general view seems to be will favour Grischuk.

Anyway, you'd have to think Grischuk will be a lot happier with this draw than Gelfand will.

As you say, though, a little bit of a let-down after Games 1 and 2. Beginning to feel like the kind of (football) extra-time at 2-2 after normal time... and where neither team tries to win (as they're scared of getting caught out and losing if they go for it), so the game just trundles toward a penalty shoot-out as the teams knock it across the back 4 for 30 minutes.

Let's hope they were just taking a breath after games 1 and 2... and fingers crossed for some knock 'em down drag 'em out stuff in games 5 and 6... please?

[Ben Purton]

Rendle if it goes to Rapidplay/Blitz(so 3-3) , can I have Grischuk at Evens?

[Thomas Rendle]

Rendle if it goes to Rapidplay/Blitz(so 3-3) , can I have Grischuk at Evens?

No.

[Simon Spivack]

I didn't like 9...h6. It just seemed to be setting a trap that Gelfand was never going to fall for. 9...f5 and 9..Be6 both looked more natural.

As a junior (sometime in the eighteenth century when Philidor {"pawns are the soul of chess"} was king) I occasionally played it, as did others; it was the original caveman attack. The idea, as the name indicates, was very primitive. Black's king side pawns would thrust forwards, ...g5, ...f5 and then even more. Sometimes the e7 knight would emerge at f5. At that level the plan could be lethal, White would panic and play e3 at the wrong moment, allowing a black pawn to get to f3. Very crude stuff, which ignores the weakening of the white squares, such as e4. Not being a theoretician, I couldn't say whether this is still a favoured approach.

I'm not qualified to comment about match tactics, but I'll do so anyway. I don't understand why Gelfand hasn't tried a mainline queen's pawn opening. My reason being that Gischuk's opening preparation seems to be better and I'd rather try and find a way out of an innovation with a lot of time on the clock. I believe Gelfand would have more chance of a win at slower rates of play.

[Matt Mackenzie]

So, we now have a genuine prospect of somebody getting to play Anand without having won a single classical game of chess to do so........

I don't care about all the erudite apologias which will no doubt appear on here to "justify" that - it is pathetic and laughable

[IM Jack Rudd]

The possibility is an inherent part of the match-play format: it's entirely possible for an individual match to consist entirely of draws. It is, however, much more likely as the number of games in the match decreases.

(Petrosian got to the Candidates' final in 1971 having only won one game in each of the previous matches, and there was a real possibility that the 1972 match would have been scrapped and replaced with a third Spassky-Petrosian match.)

[Matt Mackenzie]

One is (quite literally) infinitely better than zero

I don't know whether to condemn Grischuk, or sneakily admire him for exposing the (not that hard to discern, tbh) limitations of the format that has been used