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The question about whether Magnus Carlsen is beatable has been answered in emphatic style. Viswanathan Anand unleashed a thoroughly prepared opening and made Carlsen look human today, ultimately defeating the Norwegian in Game 3 to level the championship at 1.5-1.5.
The opening was a Queen's Gambit Declined: Harrwitz Attack, and for some reason the Norwegian avoided the Guenfeld Defense, likely fearing that that would play into Anand’s preparation. The game followed along the lines of Aronian – Adams, 2013 till move 19.
The change in Carlsen’s opening didn’t help as Anand confidently blitzed out the opening moves. The Norwegian was able to match Anand’s pace until he sank into deep thought after the Indian’s 17. Ng5. It was clear now that Magnus was caught off guard as he spent more than 30 minutes to come up with the logical move 17.... Ndf6.
Anand had acquired a dream position by now, filled with complicated variations which would have befuddled even the best.
Carlsen soon erred with 18... Nxe4 instead of dxe4, giving Anand a slight advantage and further complicating the position. The Indian, still in his preparation, opened up a huge time gap on the clock. The position after 22. Qc6 gave White close to a winning advantage with no concrete plan for Black, and Carlsen feeling the heat, started making weak moves one after the other.
The move which heavily tilted the balance in favour of Anand was once again a wrong capture on move 23. Instead of 23... exd5, Black went for the ugly Rxd5 which was anti-positional. White's pawn on c7 had tied up most of Black's pieces causing great discomfort for Carlsen as he couldn't come up with a decent plan.
Black was under severe time pressure, and with a myriad of variations to calculate, Carlsen showed his human side by blundering with 28... Ba5. The rest of the moves were just a formality for the challenger as he made no mistake in wrapping up the game.
Yet again Anand has bounced back immediately from a loss, continuing the trend that was noticed in his previous World Championship matches against Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand, where he struck back immediately after losing a game.
After three games, we’ve already seen two decisive games, and the scores are now level (1.5 points each). If the pattern continues, then we could be witnessing one of the bloodiest World Championship matches in recent history.
The question arises: will Carlsen continue the trend by going all out tomorrow with white pieces?
