Game - 3: Blood for blood

"Living of course, is rather the opposite of expressing ...we no longer know how to see the real faces of those around us...we no longer look at our contemporaries, eager only for those points of reference in them that determine our behaviour....What matters are not picturesque qualities, episodes, shades of color, or emotional effects. What counts is not poetry. What counts is truth. And I call truth anything that continues."  - Albert Camus

No.... the title is not denoting violence, rather it is an allusion for the commencement of music... a duet instead of solo!  Great day to see the other player...smile too and I rush to preempt your thought that I love only this smile...!

A picture speak million words!

A much needed victory for Vishy and it will do him a world of good!  This should restore him from self doubts.

What this first win for Vishy or more precisely the first loss for Carlsen as a world champion mean is, that Anand has woken up from the slumber and Magnus too feels pain! At feeling level, pain is same, but suffering is optional...Vishy suffered it till this win and that... and only that made him play far below his great ability. Now we will see if Magnus suffers too!

The real match starts now and I was not wrong in my pre-match predictions after all! One thing is certain, never in this match we will see a topical line....again, once bitten, 9 times shy!  I wish I am proved wrong, for that would mean appearance of more sharp Vishy type positions on board.

As an Indian, I love this victory, but as a chess lover, I prefer not to get over elated with this win; as I am not sure how much of it came right out of his folder tucked in his multicore machine....we know how deep his preparations run and we know how prodigious his memory is!

What we do also know is that Vishy is a legend, hellofaplayer, a strategist, tactician, sorcerer... and therefore I would be truly elated when he outclasses Carlsen in long maneuvering games...Carlsen's den and erase the tag which dubs him as "the one who will succumb in long games."  

I will feel truly happy if Vishy manages to conquer his mind and play his type of chess and co-create masterpieces in tandem with Magnus Carlsen.  

Before getting into the game, I wish to narrate a story which is one of Osho's favourite and is not out of place here! It is rather long but worth its time and...

"It happened in the days of Lao Tzu in China, and Lao Tzu loved it very much. For generations the followers of Lao Tzu have been repeating the story and always finding more and more meaning in it. 

The story is simple: There was an old man in a village, who was very poor, but even kings were jealous of him because he had a beautiful white horse. 

Such a horse had never been seen before — the beauty, the very grandeur, the strength. Kings asked for the horse and they offered fabulous prices, but the old man would say, `This horse is not a horse to me, he is a person, and how can you sell a person? He is a friend, he is not a possession. How can you sell a friend? No, it is not possible.’ The man was poor, there was every temptation, but he never sold the horse.

One morning, he suddenly found that the horse was not in the stable. The whole village gathered and they said, `You foolish old man. We knew it beforehand, that some day the horse would be stolen. And you are so poor — how can you protect such a precious thing? It would have been better to sell it. You could have fetched any price you asked, any fancy price was possible. Now the horse is gone. It is a curse, a misfortune.’

The old man said, `Don’t go too far — simply say that the horse is not in the stable. This is the fact; everything else is a judgment. Whether it is a misfortune or not, how do you know? How do you judge?’

The people said, `Don’t try to befool us. We may not be great philosophers, but no philosophy is needed. It is a simple fact that a treasure has been lost, and it is a misfortune.’

The old man said, `I will stick to the fact that the stable is empty and the horse is gone. Anything else I don’t know — whether it is a misfortune or a blessing — because this is just a fragment. Who knows what is going to follow it?’

People laughed. They thought the old man had gone mad. They always knew it, that he was a little crazy; otherwise he would have sold this horse and lived in riches. But he was living like a woodcutter, and he was very old and still cutting wood and bringing the wood from the forest and selling it. He was living hand to mouth, in misery and poverty. Now it was completely certain that this man was crazy.

After fifteen days, suddenly one night, the horse returned. He had not been stolen: he had escaped to the wilderness. And not only did he come back, he brought to more wild horses with him. Again the people gathered and they said, `Old man, you were right and we were wrong. It was not a misfortune, it proved to be a blessing. We are sorry that we insisted.’

The old man said, `Again you are going too far. Just say that the horse is back, and say that two horses have come with the horse — but don’t judge. Who knows whether it is a blessing or not? It is only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read one page of a book, how can you judge the whole book? You read a sentence in a page — how can you judge the whole page? You read a single word in a sentence — how can you judge the whole sentence? And even a single word is not in the hand — life is so vast — a fragment of a word and you have judged the whole! Don’t say that this is a blessing, nobody knows. And I am happy in my no-judgment; don’t disturb me.’

This time the people could not say much; maybe the old man was again right. So they kept silent, but inside they knew well that he was wrong. Two beautiful horses have come with the horse. A little training and they could all be sold and they would fetch great money.

The old man had a young son, only one son. The young son started to train the wild horses; just a week later he fell from a wild horse and his legs were broken. The people gathered again — and people are people everywhere, like you everywhere — again they judged. Judgment comes so soon! They said, `You were right, again you proved right. It was not a blessing, it was again a misfortune. Your only son lost his legs, and in your old age he was your only support. Now you are poorer than ever.’

The old man said, `You are obsessed with judgment. Don’t go that far. Say only that my son has broken his legs. Who knows whether this is a misfortune or a blessing? — nobody knows. Again a fragment, and more is never given to you. Life comes in fragments, and judgment is about the total.’

It happened that after a few weeks the country went to war with a neighbouring country, and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken for the military. Only the old man’s son was left because he was crippled. The people gathered, crying and weeping, because from every house young people were forcibly taken away. And there was no possibility of their coming back, because the country that had attacked was a big country and the fight was a losing fight. They were not going to come back.

The whole town was crying and weeping, and they came to the old man and they said, `You were right, old man! God knows, you were right — this proved a blessing. Maybe your son is crippled, but still he is with you. Our sons are gone for ever. At least he is alive and with you, and, by and by, he will start walking. Maybe a little limp will be left, but he will be okay.’

The old man again said, `It is impossible to talk to you people, you go on and on and on — you go on judging. Nobody knows! Only say this: that your sons have been forced to enter into the military, into the army, and my son has not been forced. But nobody knows whether it is a blessing or a misfortune. Nobody will ever be able to know it. Only God knows.’

And when we say only God knows, it means only the Total knows. Judge ye not, otherwise you will never be able to become one with the Total. With fragments you will be obsessed, with small things you will jump to conclusions. 

And the story ends...do I need to elaborate, draw conclusions!?

The clock starts now and its time to get into the game.

Everything that was played went over my head...I was clueless until the mist cleared... and the solace was in finding that I was not alone there!

The game started with this position on board!!  Levon Aronian and Michael Adams played the moves until this point!!

Vishy Anand opened with...

1) fe4!!

In the above stem game played in 2013, Aronian and Adams interposed this capture with 20) Qe2 Qd7 and this is a significant point of this game.  Here, the move played by Levon allowed black to extricate his queen from the confines of c8.  Can we afford to keep the royalty as "scarecrow"!?

The entire play in this line revolves around the crucial pawn on c7 which is a step away from attaining royal status!  Both White and Black need to do a bit of skating on thin ice and in the twitter and live commentary, players kept on stumbling, which gives an idea of what Magnus would have felt - assuming he had not seen beyond the stem game, earlier.

1) .....Rb5; 2) Qa4!

Chess has 64 squares and the winner is the one who controls more no of squares on the opponent territory! This move allows White queen to cross the LOC and get planted firmly on the vital "c6" square, immobilizing her counterpart.

2) .....Ra5; 3) Qc6 ba3

A passed pawn for black, but he is no match to the one on "c7".  But, can assume monstrous proposition if White keeps one wrong foot forward.  Chess play hinges on such tightrope walking especially in sharp theoretical positions and the advantage of having seen these moves on board, prior to the game in one's camp is HUGE!

4) ed5 Rd5

The amount of time Magnus was consuming indicated that he was not prepared for all these and playing this line without seeing the moves upto the point is considered a crime these days. Hence, I said that this would be the last time we see some real theoretical skirmish in this match and probably Magnus will return to pre-Botvinnik time openings!

To a question on when he went wrong, Carlsen rightly said that it was much before this move and questioned his choice of opening line too.

I refrain from attaching "?!" or "?" in this game as it is unfair to criticise the hapless player when people were struggling to find the right course even with the help of engines!

5) Qb6 Qd7

And from the stem game, Anand has improved greatly. In fact the engines give +/- which compounded with the shortage of time for Magnus is almost 1 - 0!

6) OO Rc8; 7) Rc6 g5; 

Houdini gives 7) ....Bb4 as equal; but the dynamics of this particular game far outreaches this assessment.

Carlsen did play Bb4 on the next move and I am clueless on how this interposition of g5 and Bg3 changes the assessment.  In my view, moving the bishop from supporting the e3 pawn has merits in some lines.

Anyway, these are just details and the chess forums and magazines would analyse this game with the help of multicores and litter the pages with variations, which will do nothing to improve a layman's understanding of the game...

8) Bg3 Bb4; 9) Ra1 Ba5

I cannot chastise this move either, which is a pure blunder, as admitted by Carlsen and countless others who were hooked on to www.sochi2014.fide.com. But as Carlsen himself said, he made the mistake long back....probably he meant about going right into Vishy's mouth!

10) Qa6 Bc7; 11) Qc4 e5; 12) Be5 Re5; 13) de5 Qe7; 14) e6 Kf8; 15) Rc1 

and Magnus resigned for the first time in a World Championship match!

I am tempted to term this game as a miniature despite 34 moves!

Enduring the pain, and truly in the spirit of sportsmanship, Magnus replied ".....it sucks" on a question as to how he felt on losing for the first time, and continued  "...and when it does not go well, the reason is me" to a question on the role of his team.  In similar vein, in the Anand's camp, some credit for this win should go to Vishy's team (which also includes his machine!).

Playing such positions without a prior knowledge can really be stressful to say the least.  It will be difficult for Magnus to overcome this hangover today; more so because he is not used to the suffering!

I look forward to the real World Championship Match from now on.... and for the first time in their match play, we would get to see the real Vishwanathan Anand.  This game might be the spark that he needed and for the first time I saw him smile spontaneously.  This will make Vishy realise that he too is a great player, fighter, attacker and as the Norwegian press claims this is not a script of David and Goliath.

Match on!  Come on Magnus....Come on Vishy; we'd love to see the clash of TITANS!