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The battle begins

BONN: After months of preparation filled with anxious moments, champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Vladimir Kramnik started their much-awaited 12-game battle for the World chess title at the Art and Exhibition Hall’s auditorium here on Tuesday.

Anand, dressed in blue shirt and grey trousers, was given the honour of being the first to be called to the table. Kramnik followed soon in a grey suit.

After the National anthems of India and Russia, in that order, Kramnik, playing with white pieces, faced Anand’s Semi-Slav Defence, a variation of the much-played Queen’s Gambit Declined.

The opening did not offer any great surprise since the two have played on similar lines, if not precisely the same variation, on a few occasions in their past 127 meetings in all forms of the game.

True to his reputation, Kramnik chose a solid opening that did not allow Anand to use his tactical prowess.

The positional battle saw the queens go off the board by the 16th move. Soon, Anand chose to sacrifice a pawn on the queen’s side.

As a result, though Anand had a lone pawn against the two connected pawns of Kramnik on the queen’s side, the position looked quite balanced. Interestingly, the two first played this variation at Belgrade in 1997 when Anand won in 42 moves. In fact, the encounter was the 17th between the two players and the victory helped Anand level their head-to-head record at 2-2 in classical form of chess.

Earlier on Tuesday, Anand, accompanied by wife Aruna, was the first to arrive at the auditorium. Anand looked a little tense and appeared so till the game got underway.

Kramnik smiled more to hide his nervousness and with the game just five moves old, his coat was off as he settled down for the long battle ahead.

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