The decisive phase, Carlsen leads by one knight versus 2 pawns - and Black having four pawns on the a-, b- and c-file. Anand meanwhile sacrificed his bishop, obviously thinking he could still secure a draw.

Chess engines see Carlsen in lead by +1.0 - +2.0.

Could this still end in another victory for White? Heck, I suck at endgames...

35 moves, Carlsen has more than one hour left, Anand half an hour.

P.S.

Black builds a castle with his pawns that White would need to destroy in order to get his minority of pawns through it. I think that is a task that is a bit too much. I still think - move 37 - that we see a draw on the board. Or a black victory - its four black pawns versus 2 whites. Anyway, I still bet my money on a draw.

P.P.S.

And they pass the time control...

White must manouver with his figures to force the black king out of his fortress of pawns, so that the white king can enter and cause havoc. Attacking with the pawns is no early option for White, since they must be saved from getting exchanged to have at least one of them being turned into a royal butterfly...

P.P.P.S

Carlsen attacks the rear, trying to break up Black's castle from behind. I still cannot see that attack producing the needed enforced pressure. The king seems to be able to stay close enough to defend that weak back pawn that Carlsen threatens, even with checks by the knight forcing Black to move his king.

"Es zieht sich..." :shifty:

To me the most unattractive game so far in this championship. Or I suffer from a heavy case of Monday mood.

P.S.

Carlsen tries everything, and so far Anand counters everything. White has rook and knight in striking distance, and now starts trying to move his king towards the black fortess of pawns. If he succeeds, then it becomes a fight in the tunnels and halls...

P.P.S.

60 moves, and probing and probing and probing in order to find a way to crack open Black's castle.

P.P.P.S.

Carlsen cannot turn this into a win. One pair of pawns is ready to be exchanged, then he has only one left. Maybe he tries to exhaust Anand now, to physically exhaust him in a war of attrition so that he can recover less until tomorrow - Carlsen is in top shape, physically, and only half as old as Anand.

IT begins again; chess is no game to play 'catchup' in at this level. Against Carlsen there can be no collapses of any sort.

Fast moves by Carlsen, betting against Anand's clock. 16 more moves until next time control, and Anand has 31 minutes left in a position where the variation trees are both wide and deep. Carlsen has 1 hour 18 minutes left. But ever minute he spends thinking, he allows Anand to calculate, too. He will try to keep up the time pressure, and find something unexpected that throws Anand off balance, provoking errors that way. Carlsen is the first chess master ever who has won the triple of world championships in chess, speed chess and Blitz chess, the latter two both this year. Those qualities now come handy.

A battle of some more than just wooden pieces on squares now. It finally becomes exciting - though not due to chess problems exclusively. :) The struggle lasts for five hours already.

P.S. And now Anand answered quick - and causes a longer delay in Carlsen's response. What works one way - works also the other way. :)

P.P.S.

So much for time pressure - Carlsen sits and thinks and sits and thinks... Somebody should go over to him, tap his shoulder and ask where the problem is. :D

Technically Carlsen cannot win anymore, there is an enforced variation that exchanges all remaining 4 versus 2 pawns, leaving only R+N versus R, which cannot be won. But Anand needs to take the first pawn now. Question is: does the Indian see it?

P.S.

He saw it and did the right move. Now Carlsen should realise it. Its game over, and they soon will agree the draw.

P.P.S. Both sides strike out at the pawns, though in a different fashion than predicted... Did Anand not see it - or did he see something different, or does it not matter? - So many questions, so few answers, life is too short for all that.

P.P.P.S.

They act coyly, but I think they - Carlsen - exaggerate it now.

And their server collapsed under too heavy load...

P.S.

Feeding it from another site. Carlsen still refuses to accept that it is a draw. 87 moves now. White R+N versus Black R+2P.

P.P.S

And now my alternative site - collapsed. Much drama about nothing. What a crazy day 7.

P.P.P.S.

Move 99, R+P versus R+N. Carlsen still marches on... :doh:

Black Rook versus White Rook and Knight. 101 moves. Looks as if Carlsen is seriously attacking ??? the black king...!?!?!

P.S.

104 moves. The longest match at a world championship lasted 124 moves, Kortschnoj versus Karpov.

114 moves. Tell me: can this still be won?

http://www11.pic-upload.de/17.11.14/hruz4fe5cwyg.jpg

There is the 50 moves rule, yes. Whether to play like this really is fait sportsmanship, is something different. Carlsen currently does not win new friends, I think.

Thank God its over, 122 moves, almost six and a half hours. Not before the rooks were exchanged and only the kings and one knight was left, Carlsen agreed to end it.

Whether he did his reputation a favour, can be doubted. :nope:

They are playing again, game 8 with Anand leading the white pieces. It is Grunfeld-Indian, Carlsen already managed to vary the variation and to set course into what he prefers: more unplotted grounds, to leave the theoretical battles behind as fast as possible. Different to Anand, Carlsen is known for not liking to focus on endless clashes over theory and textbook variations. He plays for the sake of enjoying to play: free, without ropes and other safeties, writing his own books instead of just repeating them. Anand on the other hand is said to be one of the best theoretical preppers in chess there are. In this, both players are very different.

I hope it doe snot become another bogged-down mess like yesterday. I really hated yesterday's match. And Carlsen has taken quite some Flak in the press. I do not think it is completely unjustified, although by rules it was legal. In the end, he has successfully stolen two hours from Anand's preparation timetable. Legal , but not real sportsmanship-like. But the history of chess championships always has lived by the stories about psycho wars as well. Fisher Spasski, Kortschnoj Karpov, Karpov Kasparov are legendary, in this regard.

P.S.

Move 17. Looks as if Carlsen has managed to stop White's initial advantage already a few steps behind the starting line. White's currently only king attack option leads nowhere and only makes noise, but Black seems to have the chance to push the balance even more in his favour. A white chance for a win is currently not in sight.

P.P.S.

Carlsen has achieved total equality.

P.P.P.S.

Carlsen enforces the exchange of pieces wherever he can, determined not to let Anand escape a draw.

Did I say "draw"? Yes, that's what I smell in the air. Annand cannot be satisfied with this outcome.

30 moves made, and Carlsen still has 1 and a half hour left, Anand less than half an hour. This also indicates that it went more or less exactly like Carlsen wanted it. Having secured - most likely - the draw with Black, on Thursday he will try to win again with White. Tomorrow is a break. Anand will need to find some innovations in th coming matches to catch Carlsen off his guard. With two thirds of the chamapionship over and trailing behind by one point, pressure is mounting and time is slowly running out.

P.S.

And they pass the time control for a game that at their playing level objectively seen is a safe draw. They now have 1:14 hours and 2:13 hours for the next 40 moves. I hope they do not push it to the limit like yesterday. If they do, I will break off. Two boring monster games in two days is a bit too hefty.

P.P.S

And the moment I typed the above, they show mercy and agree the draw in move 41.

Solid match today, but nothing spectacular, I would say. Tomorrow is a break, on Thursday the final third of the championship will begin.

8. Anand - Carlsen 1/2 : 1/2
total 3.5 : 4.5

http://www11.pic-upload.de/18.11.14/r43pbn7wj8m.jpg

They have a break today, and I use the opportunity for another intermezzo.

The time from the late 70s to the mid-90s are seen by many as the golden age of chess board computers, devices that often were of beautiful looks and after the starting years featured high quality wooden sensory boards and magnetic pieces, all computer hardware inbuild. The spearheads of these, as well as the tournament machines that were heavily tuned, sometimes costed prices equal to that of a factory-new mid-class car. Hard to imagine today anymore, the younger ones around here obviously will frown, since they do not remember it.

But inevitably the fate of these machines saw them coming to the end of their justification. PC software had the advantage to no depend on a hardware, and being able to benefit from hardware changes that were more economically to be achieved than to buy new chess board computers. The revolution took its toll on the way modern tournament chess is played today, though, and I am critical of it, it has done at least as much bad for chess than it may have done good, I think. It has certainly fundamentally changed chess, and the content and importance of theory. It has also killed a good part of the magic.

I thought that high quality board computers since several years were no longer in production, not form Hegner+Glaser, Novag, Saitek, Fidelity, or anyone. The Exclusive-board by Mephisto and the PC-linked DGT sensory boards where the last such devices I was aware of. I was wrong!

Yes, occasionally that happens. :D :lol:

Some Dutch software engineer found that he missed the good old times as much as I do. And so there he went and coinstructed a new cmachione and founded his own company, and came up with a high quality sensory board with embedded computer hightech, modern PC software implemented, modern display and the option for customers to even choose amongst several sets of wooden pieces. The new line of Revelation-II computers are equipped with either Shredder or Hiarcs chess software. The Swedish Computer Chess Association rates this machine as the strongest board computer that has ever been build, their SSDF-list has it at around 2800 ELO when running Hiarcs 13. That is extremely impressive (compared to other PC programs on PC hardware). The thing has a steeper price tag, however it is cheap compared to those mentioned racing horses they had in the 80s, that spiked to prices of up to 30,000 DM (= ~ 15,000 Euros). Customers pay between 2900 and 3500 Euros for the Revelation II today, depending on the choices for additional options and figure set (I would prefer the Royal for 75 Euros). The system can also emulate interfaces and programs from earlier board computers, namely the Mephistos.

You can check it all out here

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/

And some pics:

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/index.php?op...mid=73&lang=en

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/images/stori...G_8312.sml.jpg

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/images/stori...LAY_01.sml.jpg

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/images/stori...G_8393.sml.jpg

The board has LEDs in the corners of the fields.

Mephisto Emulator mode:

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/images/stori...0000018028.bmp

http://www.phoenixcs.nl/images/stori...4294943374.bmp

---

In this context, another emulation of old chess software. Ed Schroeder, former programmer for some of the Mephistos that were not coded by Richard Lang, already several years ago has declared his old programs Rebel-V, M-IV and M-V as freeware, so that you can download them both for an interface that mimics the control surfaces of the old Mephisto modules, and as UCI engines so that you can put them into your existing UCI-compatible GUI, may it be Arena, may it be the Fritz-surface by Chessbase. Consideing modern CPU power, you can have these old programs nor clauclating to the very limit for thewir encoded capacities within just seconds, where twenty years ago you would have needed tuning kits and n ights and days of time to poush them that far - and even then they oftehn would have run out of memory.

Richard Lang additonally gave his permission to have his Amsterdam, Dallas and Roma programs being offered on that site as well.

It all is legal, and it's free, and has the blessing of the original authors and copyright owners of these programs. Get them here:

http://www.top-5000.nl/mephisto.htm

---

Thats chess for today. In the last intermezzo on Saturday I will loose some words on the most prominent chess GUIs out there for the PC. Keep chessing!

Game 9 is set to begin in less than half an hour. Anand is one point behind and plays the black pieces, the pressure will be high for him. Loosing another game probably would be an early decision on the championship. Carlsen must know this, and will try his best to sink his fangs deep into his opponent therefore.

http://www11.pic-upload.de/20.11.14/lgkjugevhd1.jpg

Once again the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez is on the board. Has Anand found something in Carlsen's earlier play of it?

P.S.

Carlsen doe snot cooperate with Anand'S probably intention and deviates from the earlier matches' moves before the Indian could. I would think that is a clever decision. Anand must have prepared something.

P.P.S.

Carlsen may have avoided to repeat the earlier games between the two in this variation, but the deviation he chooses still seems to have been prepared by Anand - he responds fast, and with a novelty not in the books so far.

P.P.P.S.

Wham-Bham! 20th move, 1 hour played, they agree a draw.

I refuse to spend much commenting on this game.

9. Carlsen-Anan 1/2 : 1/2
total 5 : 4

http://www11.pic-upload.de/20.11.14/xqyd6p2ptiwa.jpg