Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand suffered a huge blow in his title defence as he lost to his Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand in the seventh game of the World Chess Championship here yesterday.
Anand now trails 3.0-4.0 in the 12-game match with five games still to go. The defeat came after legendary Garry Kasparov’s comments after the sixth game that Anand has lost motivation.u00a0
Viswanathan Anand during a FIDE World chess championship match against Boris Gelfand. Pic/AFP
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Gelfand got the advantage for the first time in the match and he was able to convert it into a full point. Playing his second white in a row, Gelfand went for another deviation in the Slav-meran by Anand and finally his efforts paid off.
The opening gave white a small advantage and it would have remained so had Anand not gone for unwarranted complications in the middle game.
Gelfand got a firm control of the only open file in the game, posting both his rooks there. Under pressure Anand had to be careful, but he went for an erroneous plan. Gelfand seized the initiative by eliminating one rook and according to analytical machines the way out for Anand was to play precise moves. “I don’t know when I realised that it was gone, but the position was bad anyway,” Anand was quoted as saying on PTI.u00a0
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