Bengaluru: It is a late Monday afternoon, but inside the 400-odd seater spectators’ arena at the Lalit Ashok, there is barely any semblance of a working weekday. Nor is there room for breath. The spectators, headphones on, follow the live commentary at the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League venue, as the moves appear on the board. There is the familiar hush of a chess crowd—hundreds of people watching players move pieces in near silence.
Viswanathan Anand, 56, currently acting Fide president, is no longer a regular sighting on the tournament circuit. Carlsen, 35, has since stepped away from the World Championship cycle and trimmed his calendar. He still remains world No.1. By move 30, Carlsen seemed to be taking over. Carlsen’s win wasn’t enough as his side Alpine APL pipers lost to PBG Alaskan Knights 9-7. He seemed to have Sindarov gobsmacked with 3…f6. The queens were traded inside the first 20 moves, and Magnus tried to do Magnus things in the endgame, cranking up the pressure. But he made a mistake with 47…Bb5, and it became a race against the clock. The game eventually ended in a draw, handing Fyers American Gambits a 3-15 loss, the biggest margin of defeat so far this season.
Anand managed to defend well and the game seemed headed towards a draw before his clock ran out and he lost on time. When asked about it later, Carlsen revealed that the move was born out of a mis-click. At the centre of it all, under the blinding white lights, sit two old rivals. Thirteen years ago, they met in a World Championship match for the first time. Much has changed since. The d-file resembled the notorious Hebbal traffic pile-up with Black’s bishop pair ready to turn the screws. “I felt like I was outplaying him in the middlegame and later on I was a bit shaky with little time. For a while he was defending really well, and I resigned myself to a draw. The crowd was an assortment of those who’d called in sick from work and school. Among them was eight-year-old Anish Pujar, who had flown in from Munich with his parents to watch the Global Chess League. “We end up spending our holidays in India at chess tournaments. At six in the evening as the crowds swelled outside the playing arena, Carlsen walked in – boards, notebooks, diaries, thrust before him – to play chess’ most-talked about player right now, Javokhir Sindarov. The Uzbek will go up against Gukesh in November in the classical world title duel. As Carlsen made his way past fans, someone from the crowd yelled, “Magnus, don’t make a draw! Carlsen praised his opponent. “Sindarov has a very good positional understanding. He is very well-rounded and doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses. He certainly put a lot of pressure on me early in the game.”
“Just a few moves ago, I had a few seconds more than him, so somehow my brain stopped looking at the clock,” Anand said after. Then I randomly glanced at his clock,” Carlsen said. “He’s the under-8 state chess champion of Bavaria,” beamed his mother. Anish calls himself a “Magnus fan” and the family have tickets to the next Carlsen-Anand face-off later this week before they fly back to Germany. Roughly an hour later, Carlsen walked out of the playing arena, hair tousled, calling his performance in the league so far “underwhelming”, his play with limited time “not great” and a third draw in four games.
Playing White, Anand went for a somewhat rare Sicilian, which Carlsen employed earlier at the World Rapid and Blitz Championship. Last year, it was the Chennai Grand Masters.
The main idea is that after castling, 4…a6, it’s already not terrible.” “It was originally from my coach. It was a mis-click and we started looking at it. I kind of like the idea that you can take a random move in the opening and, with computer analysis, you can pretty much make anything work.
