World Chess Championship Update

Another game, another draw.

We are now halfway through the scheduled 12 games of the World Chess Championship, and all six games have been drawn.  Today the challenger, Boris Gelfand, had the white pieces, while the champion, Viswanathan Anand, played black.  For the third game as white, Gelfand opened with P-Q4, and for the third time Anand responded with the Slav Defense.  In fact, the first five moves of this game were identical to the first five moves of games 2 and 4:

1.  P-Q4  P-Q4
2.  P-QB4  P-QB3
3.  N-QB3  N-KB3
4.  P-K3  P-K3
5.  N-KB3  P-QR3

In both Games 2 and 4, at this point Gelfand played P-QN3, which is apparently an unusual move under those circumstances.  Presumably this was some new line he had thought up for this match.  But Anand quickly blocked his efforts and both games ended in easy draws.  Today Gelfand tried 5. Q-B2, but he did no better.  After 29 moves, each player was left with only his king, one rook, and five pawns.  So the match ended in another draw.  You can read about it here.

Since the match has now reached the halfway point, tomorrow will be an off day.  The matches will resume on Sunday with Game 7, and Gelfand will again have the white pieces.  It will be interesting to see if he tries something else.

SCORE AFTER SIX MATCHES
Anand (IND) 3 - 3 Gelfand (ISR)