4 to 4
Only shows that everyone suffers brain farts now and then.
If so, I guess that alters the definition of “dead drawn”…
Yes it was dead drawn with best play. Yes it was blunder.
No it was not obvious. Susan Polgar and Zurab Azmaiparashvili both didn’t see it. (Believe it or not, I didn’t see it either! 
)
White wins by playing g6, trading off Black’s h-pawn, then running across the sixth rank to help the d pawn advance. But there are a couple tricks:
(1) Imprison Black’s king with Bg7 right before playing g6, to prevent him playing Kf8. This was probably the idea that was hard to see. After that it is possible to play Bh6 if necessary, keeping control of f8 while avoiding capture.
(2) Play f4 first, so that Black cannot play e5. This may be unnecessary as White probably doesn’t have to chase this pawn, but it does seem safest.
I had to leave before the end, believing it a “dead draw.” When I returned, I was shocked. I didn’t see it even after it was over. I had to really look. Not surprising because what do I really know? I would have lost long before that endgame. I am upset by Anand’s loss, but I have to give both those players credit. They worked really hard where most of us would have offered and accepted a draw. It turned out to be far more instructional than most with a lesson to be had from this. Hats off to Topalov.
A lot of positions where one side has a slight edge are dead draws with best play. Topa definitely had an edge with the extra pawn, and had nothing to lose by pressing Anand to see if he’d make a mistake. It was the same way Anand won game 2, and sure enough it payed off. Very good chess in this match so far!
The “winning” plan was given by an internet observer on ChessFM hours before it happened. Anand only lost because he allowed it to become a reality. So everyone following along with ChessFM saw the winning idea a very long time before the end, and were simply surprised that Anand had allowed it.
Did ChessFM commentary give a way for Anand to prevent it? Reading Kosteniuk’s notes now on chessdom, she more or less nailed it on move 39 predicting the winning idea, including the move Bg7. Perhaps Anand could have stopped it passively by making sure his bishop could get to e8 at the right time, but it’s not easy.
at the end, Ba4 holds.
instead of c6 of course. And if she didnt see the idea until move 39, then she was very late to the game.
As soon as Anand played …Bc6??, Speelman, Benjamin, and Har-Zvi called it unbelievable.
The bishop can’t stay on e8 because of zugzwang (White has b -pawn tempi to burn). Anand must have understood the Bg7 threat, as he worked very hard to avoid this earlier in the game (…Be8! and …h4!).
But it’s possible that he missed the …h6+! finesse necessary in the …Ba4 line. Not playing the pawn sac 41…e5+! is also strange for a World Champion.
GM Harikrishna was the first to spot the Bg7 idea on ICC, virtually as soon as the bishop ending was reached (see Benjamin’s Game of the Day video on ICC–excellent explanation).
Shipov’s notes (with Kasparov) are here
Everyone’s calling everything “blunders”, “bad mistakes”, “terrible errors”, etc. All because we’re sitting smugly with our computer engines. Chessdom was still calling it a dead draw almost to the end, and I guess so were many grandmasters… Let’s not overrate ourselves because we’re’ sitting home with a hunk of iron giving us the best moves most of the time.
In the past, it would have been “Anand erred…” Because of computers, it’s now “Anand blundered”.
I congratulate both players on real fighting chess. I only wish it were 24 games!
It WAS dead drawn. Anand lost because he blundered. That’s just the way it happened. The Bishop g7 idea was just a winning PLAN, not a forced win. Anand let it happen and he didnt have to. That was his blunder. Bc6 allowed the idea to become reality.
It’s true that at the time of the blunder, even the “stupid” computers realize it, but several strong players not running engines seemed to have arrived at a deeper understanding of the position than the players did. (Or the blunder was a Fingerfehler–Benjamin’s suggestion.)
As Benjamin (again) said more than once, computers are not good at recognizing fortresses.
Malcolm Pein’s notes are good, and this board is interactive.
Thanks for the sites. Shipov’s notes are outstanding, are they actually real-time?
Looks like I’ll have to monitor even more sites during these games …
Anand did have an off-day. But what would one call Topalov playing Ne3 in game 2 or h6 in game 4? These seem to me like moves he wouldn’t make if he was playing well, either.
Real-time Shipov is in Russian here. And ChessPro.ru is a good site for mobile phone users (I understand the kibitzers’ chatter is good, too, but my chessplayer’s Russian isn’t good enough to follow.)
I believe that both sites were recommended by Ian Rogers in his Couch Potato’s Guide.