May 31, 2012

Vivat, King, Vivat!

The Indians Have Enriched Their Collection of World Cups

Viswanathan Anand successfully defended his World Chess Championship title by defeating his challenger Boris Gelfand in a very tense rapid tiebreak match. Thus Anand defended the title which he has held since 2007.

The World Chess Champion was officially awarded on the closing ceremony of the championship which was held on the 31-th of May. The prize fund was $2,55 million. So retaining the title Vishy Anand got $1,53 million (60%) of the prize fund and his challenger received $1,02 (40%). One of the leaders of the Geo-Social Games Project Oleg Savchuk visited the award ceremony.

Even in Chess You Can Play a Symphony

It was very hard for Anand to gain victory: all 12 games in classic chess have ended in a draw - 6:6. That’s why it was decided to have a tiebreaker to find out who would win the championship crown, therefore a 4-game rapid match started. The players got 25 minutes and 10 seconds  increment per move. Three out of four games ended in a draw. 

In the final tie-breaker game Boris Gelfand offered a draw to help Anand to end  his toughest world title defense successfully. Luck played a major part in the final game favouring Anand when it mattered the most. The victory meant that the 'King of Chess' would keep the crown till the next World Championship in 2014 .

A lot of spectators enthusiastically watched the course of the chess game in the State Tretyakov Gallery. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhanov was among enthusiastic spectators as well. Dorit Golender-Drucker Israel’s Ambassador to Russia personally came to support Boris Gelfand.