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Viswanathan Anand would be a bit disappointed as his novelty in the opening was handled well by Magnus Carlsen. Game 5 of the World chess championship ended in a draw and the match is tied 2.5 points each. Anand once again opened with the queen pawn opening cementing the fact we won’t be seeing him play 1. e4 again in the championship.
Magnus Carlsen’s strong start to the game
The opening was a delayed Queens-Indian defense by the Norwegian in reply to Anand’s queen pawn opening. Magnus was blitzing out the opening moves like he knew before-hand about Anand’s reply.
The Indian took a more steady approach taking his time in the opening, however it was Anand who seemed like the one better prepared as he came up with the novelty 13. d6. However that didn’t surprise Magnus as he confidently made his moves, and it became obvious that he must have looked at this variation before when he played 16... Na5 almost instantaneously in reply to White’s central break 16. d5.
Anand complicated things in the later stages
The position looked equal after 19 moves, but all of a sudden Anand decided to complicate the position with the enterprising 20. Nd5 inviting Magnus to take the pawn on b2. Black declined the pawn initially, but later took the pawn on b2 to the suprise of many, however Anand’s advantage of an active Bishop against a passive Knight was only marginal and Anand decided to trade off the pieces and enter an equal rook ending where the players agreed to a draw.
Suprisingly Anand seemed content with the result in the press conference, although he had not made best use of playing with the White pieces. This can only mean that he is no longer afraid to take on Magnus with the Black pieces after comfortably holding him in the previous game. The Norwegian will have the advantage of playing the next two games with the white pieces since the pattern of the color change will be reversed after 6 games.
Magnus looked positive about having two consecutive whites in the coming games, though the Indian looked confident in the press conference, he’ll have to be well prepared to face the Norwegian grinding machine in the next two games to make sure he doesn’t fall behind in the match again.
