Last weekend at the match for the crown of the absolute world champion in chess was marked by a sharp turn of sports intrigue. It seemed that after the “toilet scandal” everything in this match would go relatively calmly. The main reasoning of the analysts was as follows: if Vladimir Kramnik succeeds (and at that moment it seemed very, very likely) to score 6.5 or 7 points, it will be completely irrelevant with which score he won the match.
Indeed, even from the point of view of the "Elo coefficient", Vladimir’s technical defeat in the failed fifth game will not be taken into account, and the final match victory will outweigh all other circumstances. In favor of Vladimir Kramnik was also evidenced by the ease with which he made draws black in the first “post-war” games: the sixth and seventh. However, in the eighth match something very unexpected and distressing happened.
Playing with white pieces and achieving a seemingly good position, Vladimir first transferred the game to a roughly equal ending, and then unexpectedly easily lost the rest of the initiative and was completely outplayed by the opponent in the endgame. The score was equal - 4: 4.
The first actual defeat of Kramnik in the match could still be attributed to minute weakness - after all, the match required constant concentration, and the nervous days of the proceedings could not but tell. But a day later (already black!) The Russian acted extremely unsuccessfully. The ninth game made a truly painful, depressing impression. Faced with a theoretical novelty prepared by the opposing team, the classic world champion passed several opportunities to create counterplay, and then almost without a struggle lost a difficult, but not yet hopeless position for himself.
According to most experts, at this moment the fate of the match was in the hands of Veselin Topalov. The most pessimistic of those who worry about Kramnik even stated that now the outcome of the fight is a foregone conclusion in favor of the Bulgarian grandmaster. However, on Sunday it was the turn of Topalov to make a mistake. Perhaps the Bulgarian was still impressed by Kramnik’s not very successful game in the previous two games (although can one underestimate an opponent in a world championship match?), Perhaps the reason is something else. One way or another, in a slightly worse position for himself, Topalov decided not to translate the game into an unpleasant but completely defensible ending, but made a sharp risky move, which, as it turned out, when Kramnik played an error-free game, almost completely forced the Bulgarian to defeat. The Russian this time played flawlessly, and the score was even.
Do not forget that the current official equality also takes into account the technical defeat counted by Vladimir Kramnik in the fifth installment. And according to the statement of manager Vladimir Kramnik Karsten Hensel, the side of the classical world champion reserves the right to challenge the results of this game in court. The situation may become especially piquant if the remaining 11th and 12th parties do not upset the balance in the score. In this case, according to the regulations, on October 13, tie-breaks will be held on Friday. But after all, according to Vladimir Kramnik, the score at this time will not be equal, but 6: 5 in his favor! And if, following this logic, he refuses to participate in an interruption in “fast chess”, then the technical victory is the second, but this time the match can be awarded to Veselin Topalov. However, it seems to me that such a scenario is unlikely. It seems that Vladimir decided in any case to finish the match to the end, and according to statistics and estimates of experts, he has a lot of chances in “quick chess”.
SERGEY MAKARYCHEV, international grandmaster, commentator NTV + / ELISTA