World Championship – Tiebreak preview and prediction

The World Chess Championship 2012 is being staged in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, between the current World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India and the winner of the Candidates tournament Boris Gelfand of Israel. The match is over twelve games and lasts from May 11 to 30. The prize fund is US $2.55 million, the winner getting $1.53 million (60%), the loser $1.02 million (40%).

Round twelve – Tiebreak preview

We start with two typical portraits of the World Champion and his Challenger, provided by our collegues in Moscow, Anastasya Karlovich and Alexey Yushenkov. They have been providing us with extraordinary visuals on the match, which we share with you in the course of this rest day report.

Anand vs. Gelfand tiebreak forecast by Daniel King

Aronian and Kramnik on the match

This is what Armenian GM Levon Aronian had to say about game twelve in Moscow:

Aronian under siege: the world's number two was a favourite consultant of the media

Aronian continues: "It’s a really interesting match. A lot of unexpected things have happened, like the openings for one. I never thought that Gelfand would play the kind of variations that he’s been playing here. And I’ve had the opportunity to see the match live, as I’m passing through Moscow at the moment." And in reply to the question " Do you agree with Kasparov that for the first time in the modern history of the game the world championship will not be decided by the strongest two players in the world?" he says: "I don’t think that’s true. The player that made it through a very tough Candidates’ Tournament and the player that has held the title for so long are, by rights, the strongest players in the world." We remind you: Levon himself is currently ranked number two in the world.

Vladimir Kramnik chatting GMs Yury Dokhyan, long-time second of Garry Kasparov,
and Joel Lautier, once France's top player, and now a successful businessman in Russia

Kramnik was asked by journalists to comment on the opinion that his recent match in Zurich against Aronian was full of excitement, while the one in Moscow has been rather boring. His reply: "How can you compare an exhibition match – no matter how seriously it was taken – to a match for the World Championship?! It’s the same as comparing an international friendly in football with the final of the European Championships! It’s two completely different things. Of course it’s easier to play interesting, attractive and “sexy” chess when you don’t have the consequences of the result constantly hanging over your head. If you want to compare this match to something, compare it with previous world championship matches, and not with my match against Levon.

Let me show you: Vlad Kramnik analysing with Max Dlugy (right) in the press centre

Seriously, this is our entire lunch? Spanish journalist and chess organiser Leontxo
Garcia with the chief organiser of the World Championship in Moscow Ilya Levitov

The main sponsor of the event, Andrey Filatov, talking to Russian journalist Evgeny Atarov

When former World Championship Challenger Peter Leko (above right, chatting with French reporter GM Robert Fontaine) arrived in Moscow, after game six, he remarked in the press centre: "Hasn't this been an absolutely fascinating match!" Can you guess what his next remark was? "Why is everyone looking at me at me so strangely?"

Ukrainian super-talents: Sergey Karjakin, youngest grandmaster in chess history,
and Kateryna Lahno, who is now married to Bob Fontaine and lives in Paris.

Ten years ago: Sergey had a 2556 rating, Kateryna 2417. Serge is sixteen days younger than her.

Nikolai Lugansky is a Russian pianist and famous prodigy. At the age of five, before he had even started to learn the piano, he astonished his parents when he sat down at the piano and played a Beethoven sonata by ear, which he had just heard a relative play. If you watch him play – there is plenty of material on YouTube – one question springs to mind: how can anyone be so good at anything?

Nikolai Lugansky explains Rachmaninov's third piano concerto (very enlightening – maximize for full enjoyment)

We have spent hours – literally – listening to Nikolai explaining classical music and are big fans.

All photos by Anastasya Karlovich and Alexey Yushenkov

Remaining schedule

Days of play, with live commentators on Playchess.com. Note that the tiebreak games start at 12:00h Moscow time (10:00h CEST) or here in your location. Yes, that right: 01:00 a.m. in San Jose, 04:00 a.m. in New York, 05:00 in Rio de Janeiro – sorry for the inconvenience for all our American friends.

Links Official web site of the World Championship match All ChessBase reports on the World Championship All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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