I haven’t posted something chess related in quite some time.
I have had some chess down time and only started playing games again a few months back.
I thought I would post one of my correspondence games that I have played on Gameknot recently as I really enjoyed it!
I was inspired by a game between Caruana and Gelfand, played at the 8th Tal Memorial this year. You can view that game below.
The game above was an exciting example of the Sicilian Najdorf variation and I wanted to give it a go! My game just happened to follow the same variation, the moves are not quite identical but reach the same position all the way to move 17. After that I made some mistakes as did my opponent, but I ended up with a nice mating attack to win the game.
The World Chess Championship was held May 10-30 with Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand facing of for the title. It is the first world championship match I have ever followed while it was being played out and so I really enjoyed it. However, many commentators and chess players have expressed different thoughts, expressing their views about the lack of excitement in the match as a whole and the individual games that were played, along with the fact that the two players in the match were not the two highest ranked players in the world.
I found the games quite interesting though, even with the high number of drawn games. The things I found most interesting were the little intricacies in the games and the opening theory that was demonstrated by the players. My favourite games were rounds 10 and 12 where the Rossolimo Sicilian variation was played. The games were both drawn but I enjoyed the ideas in the opening as something different for White to play against the Sicilian.
I also really enjoyed watching Kingscrusher and Chessexplained on YouTube go through the games and give their insights on the games and would recommend the videos to those who are interested. (A link can be found on my blog.)
The great thing about a World Championship match and other high profile matches is the amount of analysis that occurs on different websites etc. from very experienced chess players, which are available for our viewing to help us grow in our understanding of chess.
The final result went in Anands favour and he earned the title of world champion once again. The title was secured after the match was drawn and the players moved onto a rapid playoff to decide the champion.