Viswanathan Anand hands Carlsen 2-win lead after Game 6 loss

Viswanathan Anand of India and Magnus Carlsen of Norway during their match at the FIDE World Chess Championship in Chennai. Photo: SaiSen/Mint

Kolkata: The world chess championship match is all but over for Viswanathan Anand after he lost the sixth game on Saturday—the second in a row—handing his Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen a two-win lead at the half way stage.

The lead is almost unassailable considering the strength of Carlsen, who in tournament play has been the strongest player for over two years now, according to experts. This match can technically be won by the margin of even one win.

Anand, the reigning world champion since 2007, described his loss in Saturday’s game as “a heady blow” as Carlsen pulled a trick from under his hat to outsmart the Indian grandmaster in the fifth hour of play.

For the second time in two games, Anand blundered after four-and-a-half hours of play to squander games that could have been defended to clinch draws—a sign of ageing, according to experts.

Anand is 43, whereas his challenger is only 22, turning 23 at the end of this month. He now looks set to seize the world title by then, but will not be able to beat the record of Garry Kasparov, who remains the youngest to become the world chess champion at 22.

Carlsen said he wanted to “capitalize” on his win on Friday, knowing that Anand would be under pressure to equalize. Widely viewed even before the match began as the world champion in waiting, Carlsen set a “little trap” and “fortunately” for him Anand “fell for it”, the Norwegian said.

“There’s no dead drawn position against Magnus,” grandmaster Susan Polgar, said on Twitter. “He made something happen from nothing.”

About Anand’s situation in this match, she said on Twitter, “not over” but he has “a very big mountain to overcome”.

For hours on Saturday it seemed Carlsen was only torturing Anand by pursuing a victory out of a very nominal advantage. Explaining his strategy, he later said he had a “pretty solid position” and felt there was “not much risk” in pushing for a win, though he was “not at all sure” he had winning chances.

Against accurate defence, Carlsen would have had to settle for a draw, but his win in the end vindicated the hours of probing.

Anand has had a nominal edge in at least two games in this match previously, but because he chose to avoid complications he didn’t push for a win, unlike his opponent, who, having settled in with two quick draws in the first couple of games, has slowly raised his performance.

The first four games of the match had ended in draws, until Carlsen broke the deadlock with Friday’s win. Anand has in the past come from behind to retain his world title, but he has never suffered two defeats in successive games in a world title match since 1995.

Kasparov beat Anand in a 1995 duel, in which the Indian grandmaster lost games 10 and 11, after surging ahead with a win in game eight. Anand was beaten twice more and decimated in that 20-game match, which Kasparov won with two games to spare.