Friday, March 28, 2014

Chess960: Anand's dubious opening in the Chess960 World Championship 2007

In the last moments of the 2014 candidates tournament featuring Anand and Aronian, I thought I would look at a game played by these two greats in the 2007 Mainz world Chess960 championship.

What I found slightly shocked me I have to be honest!

In a rapid game of Chess960 where there is still plenty of time to play a reasonable opening, Anand started out in a dubious fashion, giving a lot of hope to all us Chess960 patzers out there!!

SP535: Anand (white) first move - Wch. Mainz Rapid 2007
1.c4 ... g6. A dubious first move by white, since it slightly weakens king safety, and black can apply pressure immediately with 1...g6 (with d5 to come). White probably didn't want to play d4 or e4, since the former comes under fire after g6, and the latter blocks white's own bishop on h1. However, d4 and e4 still seem like better moves, since they are centralizing and allow a more rapid development (develop more pieces at once), without compromising king safety at all.


SP535: Anand (white) second move - Wch. Mainz Rapid 2007
2. d3 ... d5. A dubious second move by white, since it is passive, giving black the chance to play aggressively with d5/Qa4+. A better move would have been 2.Nc3 which takes control of d5 and prevents what black now tries...

SP535: Anand (white) third move - Wch. Mainz Rapid 2007
3. cxd5... Qa4+. White seems to accept that Qa4+ is coming, but there were alternatives. One energetic but dubious alternative was 3.Qa5...dxc4, 4.Qd5+...Nbd7, 5.Qxc4 ... Nb6.

SP535: Anand (white) fourth move - Wch. Mainz Rapid 2007
4.Kd2 (forced). White will never castle, will have to move his king again to free the c1 bishop and the only compensation is that black cannot easily develop his knights to c6 and e6

If one of the greatest players of all time can play a Chess960 opening like this, there is still hope for all us patzers out there! 

I do have to say in Anand's defense, he actually won the game despite this opening! 

Another point in Anand's favour is that incredibly, Houdini-4 evaluates this position at 0.00 even at depth 22!

Enjoy 960
PS) if you want the PGN for this game, download the database of all Chess960 games here.



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