Come on Carlsen! Vishy under pressure with 2 mins left on the clock.

Well Anand might do a mistake now as he is under pressure and we might see either Carlsen as a winner or remis.

Again defended well in the end.

lol @ these press conferences

4 boring chess games.

woo hoo

I didn't see the first 3, but I thought todays game was quite good.

The first two, yes. The last two, no, unless you consider all draws to be boring by definition.

Draws make for a boring results table, but that doesn't mean the games were boring.

Todays game was like a 2-2 good soccer game. geez.

Does not compute.

He meant football /douche

A 2-2 final score in a football game would be pretty awesome. Both teams got a safety, and neither managed to score otherwise? Not even in overtime? Epic defensive struggle!

Tenacious defence by Anand. His pawn sac won't be repeated at the top levels; besides, the position was objectively equal just before that so it's back to the drawing board to attempt to improve on last month's Dominguez Perez - Navara game ( which was drawn ) if White is to play 9.h3.

After getting himself in deep trouble, Anand missed the almost impossible to find ( and play! ) resource 27. Rc2 ( instead of 27. Nb5 where 27...a6 could be an improvement on Carlsen's 27...hg4 ) with the idea of 27...hg4 28. Nb5 Nd5 29. Nb4!! Nxb4 30. Rxc7+ Ka6 ( 30...Kb8 31. Rxf7 ) 31. Nd6 with the point being that mate with Ra1+ is threatened; also, the Bc8 is trapped so Rdc1 is another future threat: then, 31...b5 32. hg4 Kb6 ( a tempo to give the Bc8 a square ) 33. Rxf7 Rg8 34. e6 and White has plenty of compensation.

The last two games were far from boring.

lol, stop watching chess then

You're thinking of handegg /doublingdownondouche /mightaswellgrowagoateeandmovetoSeattle

I prefer Portland to Seattle, and my wife made me shave my goatee. Okay, I'll stop with the derail now

This could be heresy, but does anyone else miss the old system of 24 games with the challenger needing 12.5 to take the title. Yes, it put a little disadvantage on the challenger but in this kind of format you should have to beat the champ to take the title. At least there was always someone who needed a win. The current scenario seems to create a high probability that the WC will be decided by quick chess, a situation I find distinctly unsatisfying.

Sure, I and at least some of the "older generations" miss the "old system"; that would be nice, but FIDE is intending to have the world championship every year, and maybe we're lucky to even have 12 games at classical time controls.

According to the press conference, Gelfand seemed to have seen that Rc2 line I mentioned earlier ( not "Rc1" according to Karlovich ) that could have transpired in the game after 28. Rc2!. So, if the engines are correct, the game went 27. Nb5? ( 27. Rc2 ) fg4? ( 27...a6 ) 28. fg4? ( 28. Rc2! Nd5 29. Nb4!! etc. ); chess is such an unforgiving game.

I would strongly prefer "champion retains on tie" to any sort of tiebreaker at faster time controls.

I'm the happy minority that has liked all four games and press conferences. And I like the 12 game match as long as it's a yearly or biannual event.

...now that I think of it, Gelfand wasn't looking at 28. Rc2 but 28. Rc1 which does include some mate threat but isn't close to equalizing.

there is nothing ever good about a berlin ending, people.

I had to leave before the end yesteday so missed the press conference.

The beautifully awful coverage site doesn't seem to have it and a quick google search came up with nothing. Anybody have a link?

I understand the sentiment but I don't want Anand to have any more incentive to draw his games. His last 16 World Championship games have seen 1 win, 1 loss and 14 draws.

In this case, I think we'd have to adjust Kasparov's resume (for future comparison's sake) from being World Champion for 15 years to winning 6 World Championship matches. Which, interestingly enough, I believe ties him with Lasker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmaKaH77RCE

i have a question. Ladbrokes has anand at 2/1 as tournament winner now is that for the whole match with the rapid/blitz or only the classical matches.

"Tournament winner" should include the tiebreaks, and if no odds are offered on a draw then it probably does. You'd have to confirm with Ladbrokes, though, as I'm just responding based on logic/guesswork, and can't actually verify anything for you.