looked at this with Stockfish and it reveals the answer pretty quickly, just like lkasigh said. The issue with 31. Bxg6 hxg6 32. Rxh6 is not 32...Rad8 but 32...Ba4 threatening both Rd1+ and Bb3. Ke2 meets those threats, so threatens to take on g6. After Ke2 Ba4 Be4+ Bc6, in the game, White has gained a tempo over that line and Bxg6 wins a bunch of pawns.

agree, didn't say otherwise. also agree with rei that this is hugely irrelevant, am not sure why i said it, i think just to illustrate that it wasn't a complicated idea.

maybe better to make a separate thread for this as it's kind of off topic here. Some openings are much more studied than others, and anything that Anand and Carlsen are likely to play is neither winning nor losing, but might typically lead to positions where one player is more comfortable.

Both Carlsen and Anand are very familiar with some positions 20 or more moves deep from the opening position, but in other openings, they might be "out of theory" on move 8.

It's cool that we are in an age that we can measure this: chesstempo or chess.com could add this to their problem sets and tell us within a day how many 1400s solve it within ten seconds, at least when presented as a tactical exercise.

thanks for responding, maybe later in the week I'll make that thread.

follow up question(s):

specifically to this match, as a percentage how much time did each spend studying the other's tendencies vs studying their own games and creating unused variants?

do they even want to try new lines in a match like this? or are they mostly looking for comfort?

so can carlsen actually win a pawn/make progress here or is he just playing on to tire anand out?

Judging by the GOAT Svidler commentary it seems the answer is probably not/yes.

Although it seems there will be a resolution soon so maybe Magnus isn't trying quite as much as he could to tire Anand out.

They each have teams of super GMs ("seconds") who are doing a lot of behind the scenes work to prepare different opening ideas/variations. Both sides may have some ideas they haven't played before that they'd love to play if the opportunity arises. Anand, especially, may have quite a bit of essentially unused opening prep but it would only get used if Magnus goes into certain lines which may be unlikely.

In terms of % of time they spend preparing. I really have no idea but I assume it's mainly spent by going through whatever strategy/lines the team of 2nds have prepared, which likely are prepared specifically with the opponent in mind and trying to get positions that favor themselves.

Anand is definitely the much stronger in terms of opening preparation and potential novelties. I'd imagine he and his team are much more active looking for opening "knockout" type lines if at all possible (like what got uncorked in the 3rd game) while Magnus' team is much more active in trying to find "comfortable" lines where Magnus can then bear down and use his positional understanding to grind Anand into dust.

awesome reply, thanks.

the team of 2nds...they get paid? how much does the winner of this matchup take home?

lol at still playing

I think we've got our answer now.

I fell asleep a while ago, they're still playing it out, haha.

This article has info on the money involved in WC matches. And yes the seconds get paid.

This might actually make for an interesting press conference.

lol short

Looks like a typical condom variation from Magnus: to be used once and thrown away

Magnus looked sick and/or hungover at the beginning of the match. Won't talk about it in postgame.

Definitely looked more worn out after the long game the previous day than Anand.

'Magnus' and 'worn out' don't fit into the same sentence to me

It really feels like Anand has a puncher's chance in this one. Much better than last time.

Yeah, as long as the margin is only one decisive game, it's always a fun sweat.

Rei, of course, perfectly sums up all of my thoughts on this subject. I guess I should've waited for the .gif. That is perfect.

Who needs preparation? Magnus can play these openings in his sleep.

A prepper's chance? Trapper's chance?

For some reason I am surprised that Tal is Svidler's favorite. Makes perfect sense really.

Is it just me, or has Sopiko gotten more attractive as the match has progressed? I swear at the beginning I was thinking "ehh, if they need a WGM to just listen to Svidler, they may as well just got a really attractive woman who doesn't even play chess." But now I think more like "Hmmm, Sopiko is looking pretty cute today. Hopefully they read another personal Twitter question where Svidler and her just giggle searching for words to make the question seem more professional and less personal."

Maybe it's b/c she actually talks now?

Sopiko definitely looked pretty hot today, and I think it was partly because she seemed more relaxed and comfortable contributing. Too bad the game was so short.

Hopefully we get a better game tomorrow with Anand forced to be more aggressive.

I'll be a pervert and say that Sopiko was looking not better than previously and the match in general is zzzz. I guess I'm just on too low a level to perceive queenless beauty.