WCC R10: Kramnik draws blood, score now 6:4

World Chess Championship in Bonn

The World Chess Championship is taking place from October 14 – November 02, 2008 in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. The match consists of twelve games, played under classical time controls: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The prize fund is 1.5 million Euro (approximately 2.35 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE license fees, and is split equally between the players.

The games are being broadcast live by FoidosChess, with video and commentary for €10 per game; and on Playchess.com. Details are given at the end of this report. Games start at 15:00h CEST (=17:00h Moscow, 9 a.m. New York).

Kramnik,V (2772) - Anand,V (2783) [E21]
WCh Bonn GER (10), 27.10.2008
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 c5 5.g3 cxd4 6.Nxd4 0-0 7.Bg2 d5 8.cxd5 Nxd5 9.Qb3 Qa5 10.Bd2 Nc6 11.Nxc6 bxc6 12.0-0 Bxc3 13.bxc3 Ba6 14.Rfd1 Qc5 15.e4 Bc4 16.Qa4 Nb6 17.Qb4 Qh5 18.Re1 c5 19.Qa5 Rfc8 20.Be3 Be2 21.Bf4 e5 22.Be3 Bg4 23.Qa6 f6 24.a4 Qf7 25.Bf1 Be6 26.Rab1 c4 27.a5 Na4 28.Rb7 Qe8 29.Qd6 1-0. [Click to replay]

Analysis will follow on Tuesday

Score

Picture Gallery

The start of game ten between Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand

Vladimir Kramnik muses Anan's choice of Nimzo Indian

In the Foidos control room Albert Vasser of DGT watches over the transmission

... while enjoying a fast food snack for lunch (at 4:30 p.m. – tea? dinner?)

Foidos commentary in Russian is presented by Adrian Mihalchishin

Actually his name is originally spelled Mykhalchyshyn or Mihalcišin

Adrian hails from Ukraine, but has lived in and played for Slovenia for some time now. He is currently the trainer of the Turkish chess teams, especially the girls, who adore him. But does he know enough about the players in the World Championship? Probably yes, since he was the captain of a club, Agrouuniverzal, in which two players were Vishy Anand and Vlady Kramnik. And Anatoly Karpov. He remembers fondly the time the three would join him at the fantastic fish restaurants on the Danube River and the great atmosphere that was maintained between the teammates.

American GM Yasser Seirawan doing the commentary in English. Yasser often does live commentary on Playchess.

One of the match commentators: GM Artur Jussupow, 48, who has been a second and advisor to both Vishy Anand and Peter Leko during their world championship campaigns

Russian radio and TV journalist Elmira Mirzoeva, who interrupts everthing she is doing every twenty minutes to do a live cellphone update for a national radio station

Why are you photographing me? Elmira is a WGM and won the blitz tournament for journalists last Friday

Roving Foidos journalist Tea Lanchava interviews a kilted visitor from New Zealand

The man, an artist, had native tattoos all over his face

Guest GM Daniel King, who has made many popular Power Play DVDs for us

A quick look into the theater: Kramnik and Anand are still at work

In the visitors' commentary room GM Helmut Pfleger discusses the position

In the press center GM Anatoly Vaisser (middle), originally from Kazakhstan, now living in France, follows the game with Elmira, Daniel King and other visitors

They watch the games on the live broadcast of the Playchess server, analysing it with Fritz

Director of Communication in the press room, Kema Goryaeva, with her assistant Gilyana Lidzhieva

In her previous life Kema used to run the FIDE office in Elista. She speaks excellent English, has a Western sense of humour and is generally a very pleasant person to be around

Kema's assistant Gilyana Lidzhieva, also equipped with excellent English and a charming temperament. She plays the piano. Both these ladies come from Kalmykia.

Anand is in big trouble and soon resigns the game

A first win for Vladimir Kramnik, which meant that the match goes on

Just three journalists left in the press center

When a game is finished all the journalists rush out of the press center to catch the press conference with the players, which is held in the commentary hall. All rush over, that is, except for three lonely Indian journalists who try desperately to meet the deadline for their newspapers back home. Shrikant Bhagvatulaof the Hindustan Times in Mumbai, Manisha Mohite, Correspondent for MiD-Day and Sify.com, and Rakesh Rao, Special Correspondent of The Hindu have been badly hit by the one-hour time switch from daylight saving time last Sunday. Now India is 4½ hours ahead of Germany and the deadline an hour tighter.

The press conference with the players, GM Klaus Bischoff and the Evonik/Gazprom girls

Good news: Florence, the comparative European literature student, has recovered from her respiratory illness and will now take up her position regularly behind the players

Stoic and collected after his first defeat: World Champion Vishy Anand

Collected too, Vladimir Kramnik, who needs to win the next two games to force a tiebreak

But then he cannot resist and breaks into a smile – this game has given him a boost

All photos by Frederic Friedel in Bonn

Live broadcast

The games are being broadcast live by FoidosChess, which provides five parallel video streams to present the players and commentary by grandmasters in German, English, Spanish and Russian. The cost is €10 per game. The games are also being broadcast live on Playchess.com,

If you are not a member of Playchess you can download ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access to the chess server. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. Owners of Fritz 11 or Rybka 3 automatically get a full year's subscription to Playchess.