Experts rue Vishy's loss in sixth game

At the half-way stage, defending champi on Viswanathan Anand trails world no. 1 and challenger Magnus Carlsen 2-4 in the 12-game world chess championship. On Monday, Anand will start the seventh game with white pieces and chess pundits feel that it is the Indian's best opportunity to fight back and score a full point against Carlsen.

 

GM Abhijeet Gupta: A n a n d seems to be cracking under even the smallest of pressure.

Just sup porting the pawns would have given him a draw in the sixth game. He could have also drawn the same game in a thousand ways. It just wasn't his day.

 

GM-elect Ashwin Jayaram: Anand's play in the fifth and sixth games was strange. I do think that Anand can win at least one game, but winning two will be very hard. Israeli GM Lev Psakhis: The main mistake of Anand was he didn't take any serious risk and it wouldn't be possible to keep the title with such a style of play . It is not easy to play long endgames once you are above 40 years of age.

You need to calculate many lines and for a long time. So there is no surprise to see Anand making mistakes. Only a miracle can help an Anand come back.

 

GM Sahaj Grover: I think anything is possible in chess . May b e Anand just needs to get needs to get back from this psychological blow. If he is able to do it in time, I still believe he stands a chance in this world championship.

 

IM Vishal Sareen: If A n a n d A n a n d makes a comeback in game seven, then it's not all o v e r . Otherwise, it may be quite impossible for him.

 

IM K. Priyadharshan: Anand played tamely in the sixth game. It is now close to impossible for anyone to rebound from such a score. The match was evenly poised in the first four games. In the fifth, Anand made a mistake and paid for it. He had so many opportunities to play actively in the sixth game, especially after he played a novelty in the opening. But he didn't break open the centre. All his moves were slow on Saturday and it gave Carlsen enough time to equalise. As usual, Carlsen extracted water from stone. ?

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