Could someone please explain me why Anand did not move Nb6 from Nc4 on move 53 instead of Rd6 ?

I mean ......is that a winning move for White ?

Anand missed out on couple of junctures... Nd5 and later Rdd7... let Topalov escape...

this isnt feeling good :( ...losing a drawn game and now drawing a won game... left with two blacks and one white.

Time for Topalov to run out of luck I hope.

Despite all the mistakes, kudos to the players for an entertaining, exciting, and terrific fight that remained in question til the very end! What a match!

Today's game will cost Anand the World Champion title. Pschycologically, Topalov has big advantage now.
Better for all SuperGMs to play their games till checkmate to brushup their endgame skills!

Ravi; may be only Anand knows why.

This is at leat a moral defeat for Anand. The biggest dispointement for a chess player - appart losing - is to not be able to convert a winning advantage. Besides; Anand himself lost a Q Vs 2Rs+P endgame against Karpov in his WCC match 1998. What a moral defeat.

I think that we reached the critical moment of the match: Topalov took the initiave, and in the worst cases he manage to escape like a fisch.

This game shows also that, a well known classical position, played several times in WCCs, contains an explosive potential, and one can come up with his new ideas and improvments. Chess is not dead yet.

Topalov will give Anand his much needed rest tomorrow, White win in 30 anyone?

Topalov is simply amazing, he did what Kramnik couldn't have done in ten lives.

Agree with Krish, it is most likely over for Anand. This was his worst game by far. Before the start of the match, Topalov said his advantage was his five years he has on Anand(being that much younger). I'm not sure that is precisely right, but in this game he got a draw by playing faster. With more time, Anand would have found the winning move(plural is more correct as Rybka found wins at several points). He has to hold twice with Black and somehow score a win with his last time with White. Not the way he is playing. I thought the match has been excellent until this point, very poor showing by Anand today.

statistically a black win is long over due...wchich should happen tomorrow...Go Anand go....

Off course, he did.

He had how to preparate himself for the match after what he learnt about that match.
They both are great players!
Rooks endings is not easy as people are sayng here. Just analise the game and we have a lot to work.
Great game, awesome covering by websites and oficial's match!

GC

This is a sad day for chess :( I had hopes Anand would do it again (win a game after a loss), but wasn't able to :(

if topalov was a point up now i'd be a little worried for anand but the score is dead even so don't worry about a thing.
besides , i'm still awaiting that big win from the black side. tomorrow?

cmon guys, its time for Tiger claw Technique from the Champion!
If marathons are not working, it will be short sprint attack now. **** psychology, its still even stevens and Topalov will be toppled one way or another. Go Tiger Vishy!

annad no good

I think that chess not is only playing like a technician. All the psychological terms are more important, so as I saw at the video, than the most of you do believe. Chess is: brains and nervess, nervess and brains. Not more and not less.

As a person who followed the game for most part online (with the help of Stockfish and occasionally Rybka Aquarium), I don't really believe that Anand that bad as most friends suggest here. At some point before the first time control Topalov had the upper hand but thanks to his very precise moves Anand got a slight advantage and he could have capitalized on it at some point but he was in a very deep time trouble (he even 'pseudo-checked' Topalov's king to make it to the time control). For the rest of the game after the move 40, it was unbelievable that Topalov found the very right moves again and again (although he instantly replied to Anand's each move to put him into a renewed time trouble). That is true; at some point the engines indicated a line of moves that would yield Anand an almost +4 but they were still like 20 moves ahead or so (and Anand was literally playing blitz in his last 15 moves or so because of a mere 3 minutes on his clock). I believe Topalov definitely deserves a full credit for his very precise play and his strategy about this time trouble. Kudos to both players for this great game.

Go Topa! 2 Whites will win

Isn't there anyone else who hates Topalov's chess as I do?
He's completely opportunistic, with no ideas that are not cooked up by engines.
He has formidable technical skills, but he uses them to be the world's number 1 cheapo artist. What I find distasteful is that he almost invariably plays the most complicated, most aggressive line, no matter what the best move is.
I think Short is right that Anand's fat out of shape ass is a huge disadvantage.
He doesn't have the stamina to deal with Topalov's garbage.

I think Anand is quite tired..

Considering his rather slow play, and his play.

Topalov will not give him any rest I think.

If Anand can take a draw tomorrow I think with the rest day after he can recover a bit.

Its not about moves like Td7 that are very hard to find even for a super GM. But it is about the simple Nxe6 much earlier in the game where Anand has a simple win. Why Th8+?? I don't understand.

Initiative is with Topalov now. No doubt about it. He got the psychological momentum, and playing active chess for last few games. Now, it is time to see the world champion's top notch defensive skills against one of the best prepared players today. What will he play as black... (Nimzo, perhaps?) very interesting!

I am in tears but my blessings are with Anand

no chess for me any more if Topa+Danilo win no no no no no

I didn't look at the game with engines or something ,but was just wondering, why Anand let Topolovs king free of the 8th rank.

no game here yet?

the game was really nerve wrecking, especially when you are looking at rybka and root for Topalov :) .. but I believe the result is just. Anand looks somehow shaky the last 4 games especially in the ending. Against Kramnik he was a machine, but seems like the pressure Toaplov is putting on him is influencing his game.
So far I am very happy with the match. Not a lot of fireworks but it is very interesting and far from over. It is still anybody's match.

Anand seems tired, he is blundering too much.

@ron: Topalov must be about as tired and "blundered" as much as Anand - else the game wouldn't have gone from equal to winning for Anand three times.

I put blunder in quotation marks, because I think it's unfair and unduly harsh on the players to expect near-perfect play in such a complicated position. Anand blundered in game 8, today he only played inaccurately - excluding the hard-to-believe 40.Rh8+? .

Anand is not sleeping well due to noise made by bulgarians, thats why Anand is making those mistakes.

In this match I couldn't take side. I like both players, and both "chesses" too much. Two great players! Let the winner win!
But some comments here are incredible! And after such a (at least practicaly)complicated struggle!

@Anandophile

Yours is the best ever!!
"Topalov opportunistic" (as if chess wasn't much about that too...)
"No ideas not cooked by engines" (nonsense you yourself deny almost imediately)
"cheapo" (this notion would make sense here... but maybe only from top GMs? Capablanca or Tahl would answer properly)
"garbage" (something the WC is having hard time himself! What a laugh!!)

I wonder the chess strenght of such a master commentator :-)
Ah! "hate". Okay.

@Ravi:
53.Nc4+ fails to Nxe6 54.Rxa5+ Qxa5 55.Nxa5 Kxa5 and Black wins by promoting his b-pawn.

At other sites (Chessbase, Chessdom) I've read that Vishy missed winning continuations such as 40.Re4! (instead of Rh8+), 54.Nd5! (instead of 54.Nc4) and 62/64.Rdd7! (instead of 62.Rc5+/64.Kg3). I wonder if 56.Kg3 could be added to this list. On the other hand, Veselin is reported to have missed the strong defending moves 30.... Nd3 (instead of 30.... Qxd4+) and 44.... Qc1+ (instead of 44.... Qa1+). None of these seem to be huge blunders (it takes variations of at least 5 moves to understand why they were bad), so the first to blame for the amount of mistakes may be the availability of computers helping us to identify that many of them.

In spite of the errors, the last two games have been quite interesting, and it seems Topalov won game 8 and saved game 9 thanks to better mental (maybe also physical) resistance. Yesterday when looking at the live video I had the impression Anand was feeling very uncomfortable after missing Topalov's 23.Ne4! Such a feeling may explain his ultimate mistake 54.... Bc6??, and the same may have happened today once he realized that his last move before the time control (40.Rh8+ ?) gave away much of his clear advantage.

Topalov deserves a lot of credit for his fine opening preparation, his solid play and his perseverance so far, but Anand is still able to strike at any time (Black or White, regular time control or rapid). I hope the match will be decided by one of them outplaying the other, and not through another prepared opening idea or some play-off blitz game. That's the risk of a match with only 12 games, but as chess fans I feel we may expect some spark of genius from a new (classical) world champion, such as what Anand showed in Bonn when he overcame Kramnik.

Almost everyone Anand is downing and eventually lose the match. I think different.

Its the first game of the second haft, when Anand gained a long advantage. He is recovering now! It is Topa, who has to be scared now. Remember! Anand also won Topa in the past as Black. His position is not so desperate and he has for sure some weapon unreleased.

I still predict Anand win the match

People who think strong amateurs can't have any opinion about GMs are ridiculous. I can look at Topalov and see that he is hyper-aggressive just as a knowledgable tennis fan can watch some pro and see that he prefers a baseline game, or an amateur golfer see that some golf pro is stronger at putting than another.
Topalov clearly prefers to play aggressive moves rather than best moves.
The fact he almost always plays aggressively proves this, because not all positions call for direct play.
I find his games ugly and lacking grand conception.
His best game was the Pearl of Wijk aan Zee, where his appetite for unsound adventures gave Kasparov an immortal opportunity.

Equally obviously, without engines cooking up surprises for him, he would not be a top player. Anand or Kramnik or Carlsen are players of enormous natural talent who work with the available tools and who would shine in any age.
Topalov, IMO, is far less talented than any of those three.
Ivanchuk is probably the best chess mind out there, but he is dissolute, unfortunately.

Moral victory? Whatever. The match is still equal. Topalov still has to win, unless he gets to unleash some "atom bomb" novelty, it's not going to be easy.

What I mean as "blunder" (blunder!) is Anand's ...f4?? yesterday missing the simple Ne4, and later his ...Bc6??. These are moves that any 2000 player would consider serious blunders so at 2800 these blunders are colossal...
Today I can't understand Th7+. Why let the king escape? Something is wrong with Vishy.

come on Anand!! You can do it!

"What I find distasteful is that he almost invariably plays the most complicated, most aggressive line, no matter what the best move is."

o_0

Simmer down. That's a silly thing to say, and even sillier to hold as a real position.

I forgot to mention Topalov's watch today, and somebody finally asked him about it, as I wrote in a previous article. That watch is suspicious to me.

Watch the watch:

http://www.chessbase.com/news/2007/morelia/morelia104.jpg

Another one of his "binary" watch:
http://www.chessbase.com/news/2007/morelia/morelia105.jpg

Sorry for posting too frequent, but this is my last. Another of his watcches:
http://www.novinite.com/media/images/2010-02/photo_verybig_113340.jpg

The watch thing is stupid. You cannot fit a engine that requires ram data and hard drive disk memory into a small watch like that. AND, even if you can, how will he cheat? Anand and the arbiter will see him touching his watch frequently, so there is no way. The only way to cheat is like this: Lets say top has a secret ear piece that is remotely transmited to Silvio (his manager) or someone from his team. Then, the person watches the games and opens up rybka3 and rybka will suggest a move. Then the person transmits the move by talking to Topalov through that ear piece and top will make the suggested move and so on. But even that is HARD, so all i am saying is that nobody is cheating, trust me.

since u started :D
http://www.chessbase.com/columns/migpics/pics-veselin-topalov.jpg

@Anandophile

(Sorry my English)
No, your second post didn't get you the reason you hadn't.
Your aproach is all about opinion (more precisely, passion!), but you kept trying to have "reason".
You disliking Topalov's play (and/or person?) is respectable, but it should stay in that kingdom of "hate", "distaste", "garbage", "ugly".
Because when it comes to your "conclusions", like those I mentioned before, and "restrenghtened" by, for instances,

- "lacking grand conception" (grand enough to beat those of the biggest!)
- "unsound adventures" (a thing every GM has, namely Kasparov, and namely also punished by this very Topalov kind-of-coffeehouse-player of yours)
- "prefers to play aggressive moves rather than best moves" (this is SO wrong, I think if it was right, it would be the greatest praise you could do to him, in face of his acomplishments, over the years! Just imagine! What ELO would he have he he --- once and a while! --- prefered to play one or two best moves!)
- "obviously, without engines cooking up surprises for him, he would not be a top player" (What?? What an OBVIOUS?? thing to say... not!)
- "is far less talented than any of those three" (not?)

you're either completely wrong or, at least, completely unbased.
No disrespect, but those are simply ways you PREFER to have things. NOTHING real.

@Castro: why do you waste your time mate ... I gave up on that long time ago. There will always be such people and trying to change their point of view is most of the time pointless ;). It will get to them one day.

As things stand today and please dont get me wrong - I am a huge Anand fan, but with just 1 white, I am of the opinion that we have a new world champion here......I sincerely hope that I have to eat my words on May 11th or May 13th- as the case may be.

And yes, it sad, my heart goes to Anand.

@ron
"What I mean as “blunder” (blunder!) is Anand’s …f4?? yesterday missing the simple Ne4, and later his …Bc6??. These are moves that any 2000 player would consider serious blunders so at 2800 these blunders are colossal…
Today I can’t understand Th7+. Why let the king escape? Something is wrong with Vishy."

It's very easy from the outside, and from the post-mortems and from engines.
But lots of people forget that the biggest difference from masters to amateurs (and from GMs to top GMs, and so on) is, most of the times, NOT the size of the blunders, but their frequency.
In this match we have players who risk and push parheaps somewhat more than average (and that is great!), and so the games are intense, and the blunders more aparent. That said, I recomend analising ALL WCC matches, because one can find as many --- and as serious --- blunders, as in this one.
Mistakes happen all the time.
That's nothing wrong with Anand. He is a genious, and he can end up winning.
The EXACT same must be said about Topalov, in my opinion.
(but well, one of them must eventualy win. I'm not a tiny bit worried :-) )

video?

Peter, after move 60 both players get 15 minutes, not half an hour.