World Championship Picture Gallery of the final day

10/30/2008 – The Match in Bonn is over, Anand has won and retained his title. After the final, eleventh game was over there was a brief prize-giving ceremony, a press conference, and then a flurry of phone calls for the World Champion, most from his native India. Finally, a relaxed celebratory dinner with his team, which had emerged for the first time from the workrooms in the hotel. Big pictorial report.

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World Chess Championship in Bonn

The World Chess Championship took place from October 14 – 30, 2008, in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. The match was scheduled for 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 match was won by the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who thus retains his title. Anand beat the Challenger Vladimir Kramnik by a final score of 6.5:4.5. The games were broadcast live by FoidosChess, with video and commentary for €10 per game; and on Playchess.com.

Picture Gallery from the final day in Bonn

Anand makes the first move of the eleventh game: 1.e4

1.e4 – but we spent all night preparing for 1.d4...

Anand gets a long, probing stare from Kramnik...

...who then leans back to consider his options: the Petroff? No, can't play that...

1...c5 it is, the Sicilian. I must give him a tooth-and-nail fight for the title

The theater not completely packed on this Wednesday afternoon

In the press room the legendary Vlastimil Hort, former world championship candidate

Dr Helmut Pfleger and Artur Yusupov commenting for the live audience

Suddenly the game is over – tournament director Josef Resch, flanked by the obligatory
Evonik-Gazprom girls, speaks to the audience about its resounding success

After that the prize-giving – Anand receives the big trophy (from the FIDE honorary President Florencio Campomanes)

...and Kramnik receives the smaller runner-up award

At the press conference: Kramnik, Anand and the anchor Klaus Bischoff

Vladimir Kramnik at the press conference after the last game of the match

Naturally more upbeat: the old and new World Champion Viswanathan Anand

By the way, what does his name mean? Professor Stephen Jenkins of Arcata, USA. explains: "Being trained in Sanskrit, I can tell you that the name Viswa-nathan actually means "world-champion." Viswa means world and Nathan means Lord or Master. It is usually an epithet of deities (Anand means joy or bliss). So he is a World Champion named "World Champion!"

Stephan Andreae of the Art and Exhibition Hall shows off the new Anand t-shirt

Anand's oldest (and by far the tallest) second: Peter Heine Nielsen from Denmark

Anand second Rustam Kasimdzhanov, who had produced a series of training DVDs

The youngest second: Radoslaw Wojtaszek (whom everyone calls Radek)

An old friend and assistant of Anand: GM Surya Ganguly of India

The entire team poses for us: Kasim, Peter Heine, Surya, The Vish, Aruna and Radek

The phone calls start pouring in (left: Hans Walter Schmitt, one of Anand's oldest friends,
the organiser of the Chess Classic in Mainz and President of the Chess Tigers in Frankfurt).