Anand's Killer Blow - 2008 World Chess Championship

Context to the Match

The 2008 World Chess Championship match was played between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik to decide the world champion. It was played in Germany at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany. How these players got to play in this match, especially Kramnik, remains a complicated story due to the whole story with FIDE splitting and the reunion in 2006.

Before this game, Anand had previously won the third game with the black pieces, a huge result. Note that this is a 12 game match, unlike the matches now where 14 games are played.

Game 5

With the previous game ending in a draw, Anand maintains his 1 game lead as game 5 begins, Kramnik white against Anand. The two players entered a main line semi-slav defense, and during the middlegame Kramnik kept a sizeable advantage of close to +1. A few inaccuracies did come out from both players, and I want to direct your attention to the position after Black's 28th move, Rc3.

The position is around equal after Bxd7 Kxd7 and a move like b5. White has strong connected queenside passers, but black has more activity with the rook as well as a far advanced passed d pawn. We can say this position is in dynamic equilibrium.

However, Kramnik went for a line which required deep calculation and was definitely not easy to play over the board. He thought it was a clever way to win a pawn, yet he did not realise the complications that would arise.

The Sequence

In the position above Kramnik went for 29. Nxd4. At first sight, White seems to be sacrificing a knight, and after Qxd4 Kramnik's idea was 30. Rd1. Now, if Anand moves the queen White will play Rxd7+ with a strong attack on the black king.

If Qe4?? Rxd7+ Kf6 Qh4+ is completely better for White.

After Rd1 Anand played the only move that doesn't lose, Nf6, counterattacking the white queen. If White doesn't take the queen, Kramnik sacrificed a knight for just a pawn, which is not enough compensation. At least after taking the queen, he will have Rd7+ to win back the piece. Or so he thought...

Kramnik takes the queen, Anand takes on g4, Rd7+ follows, Kf6, and Rxb7. It looks like for the moment white is up a pawn, and there are no back rank issues, right?

Well, Anand does give a check on c1, after which Kramnik plays Bf1. Kramnik calculated until this point and thought that he had good chances to win. However, he missed how powerful Anand's next move is. Can you find it?

Black to play and win.

The Answer

Congratulations if you found the only winning move for Black, which is to...

....play Ne3!! Boom!

Kramnik missed this reply from Anand, and credits to Anand for calculating all the way until this point to realise that the position was winning from the moment Kramnik blundered with Nxd4. Black is attacking the bishop on f1 for a second time, and white has no way of saving it as it is pinned. If white does not take the knight, Black will take the bishop with forced mate to follow.

After fxe3, Anand simply takes the pawn back fxe3, and now we see the real idea behind Ne3.

Black has the simple idea of playing e2, winning the bishop and more importantly making a new queen. White's only try at keeping the game going is to play Rc7 (giving up a whole rook, otherwise he gets mated), and after Rxc7 to play g3. However, even then, Black can play Rc1, threatening e2 again, and after Kg2 play Rc2+, Kf3 (if Kh3 e2 wins the bishop by force or Black queens), and Rf2+ to win the bishop. Kramnik resigned after black recaptured on e3.

Conclusion

This incredible find by Anand helped him to extend his lead in the match to two games after just 5 games of play. Anand went on to press further with a win in game 6 with the white pieces. Although Kramnik did bounce back in game 10, the first of three straight victories he needed to send the match to tiebreaks, a draw in game 11 was sufficient for Anand to win the match. Anand would go on to hold the title of undisputed FIDE World Chess Champion until 2013, when it was taken from him by Magnus Carlsen (see a previous blog post on how Carlsen managed to do that). See you in a future blog!

Here is the game from the official lichess broadcast:

Here is the link to the study containing all 11 games: