Agree, Chandler. Judging by its "News" section, the site is dedicated to Danailov with WCC as a side event.

funny chessbase says today white could win with 39.Qa2 and 42.Qb2.
who is saying the truth ??

Now 3 Whites in last 5 games for Topalov. Today he proved again that he has guts! Go Topa!

What if I had proposed the following scenario earlier today?
- One player has an extra piece, but the opponent has a passed pawn one square away from promotion
- hence the position is dead drawn, but there is no easy way to finish the game "Sofia style" with a threefold repetition.
Everybody (including myself!) would have thought that I must be joking, and some people would have called it "a very unlikely scenario" ... :D

oh no, Anand could win this (42Qa2). what a bad luck.

42.Qa4

surviving next game is extremely crucial for Anand now. he has lost out on making consecutive whites count... all focus will be on DEFENSE now.

which chess engine finds 42.Qa4 with tablebases ?
robbolito did not find it.

Catalan served Anand well for two games, but I guess one cannot continue the same opening against one of the most prepared players in the world. Topalov's team is very good at preparations, and in this game, Topalov, even the game was drawn, got to play actively, so there must be some satisfaction for his part. It was impressive play by the world champion though. He turned around the situation and got a better position at the end. Is it going to be another Slav? Probably team Topalov is preparing something against it, but still, Anand is an expert of this opening, so it is likely to see another Slav. Or, is Topalov going for e4? We cannot rule out c4 though. That would be extremely interesting.

42.Da4 was immediately found by Fritz11.

I am surprised the way Topalov reacted. He seems to have made a strong come back. I hope Vishy makes his home work well from now on. Gud Luk Vishy.

having the first move, playing the white side, is overated.
this has often been proven by anand playing the black side in many tournament and match games. topalovs' results in games six and seven tend to support this line of thinking as well.

anands queens-knight got a good rest today :-)

Ruffian 2.0.1 finds 42.Qa4 too:))) at depth=10

good old chess engines.

why is ruffian no more developed?:( too sad

at depth=13, not 10

Congratulation for both players. Great game at great level!

Exciting game! Great preparation by Topalov, under the circumstances great defence by Anand. Both players defying computer draws and going for it. And quite difficult to understand. I thought Anand was in big problems after 25... Bb4 and had expected something like 28... f5, which at first had the smell of zugzwang.
I don't understand a thing about Shipov's variation; can anybody explain? I'm particularly puzzled by 45 Qa1. Is the queen really better here than on b7? What about 45... h5? To hell with engine evaluations, what's the plan apart from stopping d2?

Looks like Topalov has more advanced "opening lab"

It seems Anand missed an earlier win after 39.. g5? 40.Qc5! and now if:

40.. d2 41.f4 +/-
40.. Kg6 41.Qd4! +/-

People who said that Topalov is the small brother of Kasprov did get wrong.

@chess; tablebases work with a few pieces left on the board. On move 42 there are a lots of pieces left (9 !!!)

............. did NOT get wrong.

no matter, my chess engines showed tablebases hits even at move nr. 42.
after 42.Qa4 is won for white. h5 doesnt help.

@chess
Well, that was a really helpful comment. h5 doesn't help what, exactly?
Can you explain in forced variations? Maybe give me a general idea what white's plan is? Why the combined power of g-pawn and d-pawn, keeping white's pieces busy, providing covered squares for the queen, isn't worth a knight?
Or is the engine just saying: "white has a material plus of one point" - which doesn't mean a thing?

... but I do understand Catpower's comment: centralizing the queen in stead of putting it on a1 and keeping an extra pawn left with f4 seems logical.

i did not analyze the endgame myself. after h5 later black lost the c4 pawn and the g5 pawn by the white queen, and later exchanged the queens in the computer analysis line.
try to analyze the position with your own engine or maybe chessbase.com show some good analysis:)

Update: In the 40.Qc5!? d2 41.f4 variation black seems to be able to hold: 41... gxf4! 42. gxf4 Kg6 43. Qe5 Qxe5 44. fxe5 Kf7 45. Kf3 Ke6 and white is unable to make progress.

That means that Shipov's line of 42.Qa4! is the only win Anand seems to have missed.

Eg 42.. h5 43. gxh5+! 43... Kxh5 44. Qa7 Qd5+ 45. Kf1 Qf5 46. Qd4 g4 47. Qe3 Qf6 48. Qc5+ Kh6 49. Qe5! Qf7 50. Kg1 Kg6 51.Qe4+! Kg7 52.Nxg4 +/-

'tis downright nauseating to see danailov using the wcc (anand-topalov.com) as a stage for his plug for the fide elections.

we can only remember with nostalgia the wcc in bonn; the site had some amazing analysis of all the games, and I cannot remember anything that even minutely diverted attention from the games.

may be shipov used fritz 11 or ruffian 2.01 for the analysis?:)

@Catpower
I'm convinced.

@CatPower, first off in the line Shipov (you) propose 45...Kg6 might be better and secondly, why not reply with 42...Qd5+ instead of 45...h5 to begin with

these lines are almost impossible to play perfectly even with a computer and that is the only way we can offer improvement to the game played OTB

Anand was playing chess, Topalov was just rehearsing. Are we close to the End of Chess?

@ Jhoro, I gave a sample line for h5 as was requested. Have winning analysis for the lines you propose as well but have shut down the silicon monster so will post tomorrow if you are interested.

The previous game, it was two bishops against two knights; today, it was two pawns against one knight. It's clear that Topalov has no respect for knights. :)

CatPower, in the post-mortem
http://www.crestbook.com/files/Sofia-2010-Game-7-Summary.wmv
Shipov himself no longer thinks Qa4 was winning. As far as the h5 line goes I already pointed to you that 45...Kg6 is better than your line. In all cases it is very unlikely they would have followed any of these computer lines for 20-30 moves without deviation so this is just academic

I believe too much is made of the two whites in a row. In chess, black is also fighting to win as we saw today. We also saw Anand dismantle Kramnik with the black pieces. Chess is a fair game and at this level... it's about equal. The old adage "win with white, draw with black" is on the way out. We've seen Kramnik move away from this idea and he is no longer the ultra-conservative player we once knew.

Statistically speaking, White enjoys a very slight advantage (around a tenth of a percent I believe). So "win with white, draw with black" is alive and well. We have seen Kramnik take some more risks with Black lately and his results have been somewhat shakey, so I'm not sure that's the best evidence to support the arguement that "Black is OK"...

FireBird found 42.Qa4 quite early but then discarded it for Qb7, but then at depth 24 it thought that 42.Qa4 was very strong again. I looked at the variation and it was certainly winning.

Anand is a great player but chicken in his comments, always being nice and easy-going. But infact he makes no statements and allows without any cristism all that is wrong in the chessworld. As(s) a WC he could do more! He goes for the money and right he is! Calculated and besides that a great player, but not an ambassador for chess. Yellow though i do hope he'll win!

@paul "always being nice and easy-going"

Here is someone complaining about someone being nice. Only a nice person who is dignified and not boasting off about his achievements can be a ambassador for chess.

Some people always find something to complain about. It is an art I suppose.

diz was da triller play showdown

@noyb: White's advantage is a lot more than 0.1%. Not counting draws, White wins roughly 55% of games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

but twic has not analyzed ideas with blacks pawn h5 moves.

White doesn't win with 42. Qa4 as Black can simply trade his e3 pawn for the pawn in c3. With both kings exposed and Queen+Knight vs Queen+Passed Pawn the sure outcome is a draw. In the line given by Shipov Black plays 44 ... Kg7 instead of ... Qd5 or any other queen's move and White has only an insufficient plus. (Firebird gives a ±0.63 at depth 34 after a long 25-move variation.)
It was an impressive game, though. Topalov found a way to impose his style for the first time in the match with Black. He actually managed to push the champion against the ropes in the two successive games everybody was expecting Anand to increase the score advantage.
But the champion demonstrated his over-the-board analytic powers and confident composure under pressure. Great defense in both games!
Time to ponder what Topalov might play today. He is likely to come up with something crazy against the Slav. It would be interesting to see him trying 1.e4 based on the fair assumption that Anand seems to have devoted most of his preparation to defenses against 1. d4 since his match against Kramnik.

Hi Peter!

Is it possible to show the English text also when they are speaking English? The sound is not very good, hard to understand...

Hi Peter,
Can I ask, how is your relation with Topalov, or the Topalov camp? I noticed that (it looks like) he is trying to ignore you when you ask your question to Anand. Maybe it's just me...
Cheers

ok, i see now twic has analyzed today 42.Qa4

http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/chessnews/events/world-chess-championship-20...

@Thomas

"the position is dead drawn, but there is no easy way to finish the game “Sofia style” with a threefold repetition"

The game did end with a threefold repetition. The position is the same after the following moves. The fact that there were intervening moves does not matter for the rules.

46.Qd1, 50.Qd1, and 58.Qd1

In fact there was an earlier threefold repetition of the position after the following moves, which the players missed or chose to ignore.

43...Kg7, 45...Qe6, and 49...Kg7

@ron These kind of "rehearsel" already existed in games and matches hundred years ago, so no, we are not witnessing the "End of Chess", it is and has always been part of our game to "rehearse" the opponent in an prepared line!

people you say white can not win after 42.Qa4 ?
pls give a long line that i can verify it .

why chessbase and twic doesnt analyze it?

@misja: I know, that's why I wrote "no EASY way". Of course there will always be a way ... .

On the video, it was clearly visible that Topalov scrutinized his score sheet, trying to find "a drawn way out" while respecting Sofia rules .... . And Anand may well have been teasing him, not going for a simple _consecutive_ threefold repetition.

@Hortensius: You remember some columns here before the match (actually written by Arne Moll)? I agree with and appreciate Chessvibes' critical coverage, but maybe the Topalov camp was and is offended - see also their long-term wars with Chessbase (going back to Elista).