Defending champion Viswanathan Anand survived by the skin of his teeth, steering the fourth game of the World Chess Championship to a gruelling draw against Magnus Carlsen of Norway, here on Wednesday.
With eight games still to come in the 12-game affair, the scores are tied at 2-2 and the battle is really heating up if the last two games are any indication.
Anand was pushed to the wall for the first time in the match and this happened soon after he was seen pressing for a win in the third game that ended in a draw yesterday. It showed that Carlsen has got steely nerves.
The Norwegian also changed his opening with black and it turned out to be a good ploy after his Caro Kann in the first black game.
The Berlin defense became famous after Vladimir Kramnik used it successfully to beat Russian compatriot Garry Kasparov in the Braingames World Championship match in 2000 at London and since then it has found a stronghold in the elite chess circles.
Anand himself has played the opening with black successfully and he definitely had an idea up his sleeves. However, Carlsen was the first to spring a surprise as early as on move 10 when he moved his Bishop.
While it was not a new move, it was indeed a surprise as it had been played just four times prior to this and three out of those four games were played by Jon Ludvig Hammer, trusted friend and second of Carlsen. More recently, Navara David of Czech Republic also played it successfully to get a draw with Lenier Perez Dominguez of Cuba.
Anand did not get much out of the opening and, while looking for complications, sacrificed a pawn on the queen side, that to the bare eye looked like a poisoned pawn.
Known to never avoid complications, Carlsen took the bait and it was backed by some brilliant intuition as the later part of the game revealed.
