World Chess Championship: New opening, same old result

The wait wasn’t long for enthusiasts expecting the King Pawn Opening from world champion Viswanathan Anand. Playing with whites in the fifth game, Anand opened with the king pawn for the first time in this 12-game match against challenger Boris Gelfand.

The surprise element as expected was missing with the Israeli GM too having anticipated this move from Anand and the game fizzled into a draw after 26 moves.

This was the fifth successive draw in as many games and leaves the score tied at 2.5-2.5.Gelfand will wield Whites in the sixth game scheduled on Friday night.

Gelfand counter surprised Anand by skipping his favourite Petroff Defence and instead opted for the Sveshnikov variation of the Sicilian Defence. Anand was once again not his usual self and it was another slow and safe approach by the Indian who is fighting in the Classical format for the third time, having defeated Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 and Veselin Topalov in 2010.

It was once again a technical and theoretical positional battle which the beginners and amateurs may find difficult to follow but neither player conceded an inch in the game which lasted less than a couple of hours.

The players followed the well-analysed and dissected main line of the Svehnikov and the play was focussed on the queen side with pieces swapped at regular intervals.

After 26 moves, each player was left with a queen, rook and opposite colour bishops which had them unhesitatingly settle for a draw without anything left in the position.