The Big One! World Championship 2012 – Anand Vs Gelfand

Well it’s approximately 40 hours before the World Chess Championship 2012 match begins!  The current champion is GM Viswanathan ‘Vishy’ Anand from India, who will try to retain his title against the Israeli GM Boris Gelfand!  


The overall score between them in previous encounters is 40/69, including rapid and blitz, in favor of Vishy.  As a result 88% people in a poll I saw voted that the World Champion will defend his title successfully.  I feel that people are not appreciating what Gelfand has accomplished to get to the World Championship game.  He picked up a hot streak at the right time, defeating Mamedyarov, Kamsky and Grishchuk, all 2730+ players in the Candidates Match.  These guys were no push-overs.  Boris wasn’t given a free pass to the final.  He earned it.  So let’s not diminish the player and the game.
People have to understand that it’s the present that counts – the ‘NOW’ – not the PAST.  Vishy wouldn’t care much about the past.  He will prepare like he is playing a worthy opponent.  It’s what these players can do now that counts.  


Moving on, we’ve usually seen 1.d4 in World Championship matches, which Vishy countered with the Gruenfeld in his WCC match with Topalov.  Will he stay with that or has he prepared something else?  Gelfand has rarely played 1.e4 so will he use it as a surprise.  Perhaps!  Personally, I hope there’s at least one e4 game 🙂  The Match begins on May 11, at 3pm local Moscow time (7am EST,4:30pm IST).  You can tune in at  http://www.anand-gelfand.com/   to follow the games.  Good Luck to both players and may the better chess player win!  I do hope it’s Vishy!  No disrespect to Boris!

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