Friday Fun: Anand Wins!

Just to complete the story I've been telling over the last couple of weeks, Viswanathan Anand of India did hold on to retain his World Chess Championship title this past week by drawing game 11 in his match with challenger Vladimir Kramnik.

Definitely, all congratulations in the world to Anand who is a deserving challenger. To quote Garry Kasparov on the Daily Dirt blog:

It was a very well-played match by Vishy. Except for the loss of concentration in the 10th game, he played consistently and managed to enforce his style. His choice to open with 1.d4 was excellent. He reached playable positions with life in them so he could make Kramnik work at the board. Anand outprepared Kramnik completely. In this way it reminded me of my match with Kramnik in London 2000. Like I was then, Kramnik may have been very well prepared for this match but we never saw it. I didn't expect the Berlin and ended up fighting on Kramnik's preferred terrain.

*snip*

A great result for Anand and for chess. Vishy deserved the win in every way and I'm very happy for him. It will not be easy for the younger generation to push him aside.