World champion Viswanathan Anand scored his second sensational victory with black against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the fifth game of the World Championship, thus extending his lead to two points.
If anyone believed that the World Championship match was interestingly poised after Anand got into lead winning the third game, they were all in for a surprise when the Indian stalwart did an encore and punished Kramnik yet again once the game took a tactical turn.
It was yet another Slav by the Indian ace and Kramnik went for what he had chosen in the third game, giving an idea that he had prepared something against the variation.
However, Anand had other ideas and once again he was the one to come out with another surprise. If Kramnik thought he was going to deviate from the earlier game, he was proven wrong as on the 15th move Anand came up with a new idea.
Like in the third game, Kramnik yet again felt the heat and spent a lot of time on his clock. Anand got a good lead on the time while his position also remained intact.
Kramnik went for unwarranted complications instead of going for equalising, which caused him dearly. The Russian was under pressure when Anand just improved the position of his pieces and maintained a fairly balanced position.
Seeing the clock ticking away and not much in sight had a horrendous effect on Kramnik. Anand was probably hoping for the disaster that struck the Russian on the 29th move.
Going for a tactical move, Kramnik missed a fine retort that turned the tide decidedly in Anand's favour. The Russian had started the combination with a piece sacrifice that boomeranged in quick time.
Anand ended the game with a study-like finish. Sacrificing his last minor piece to ensure that his central pawn's march to glory. The game was over in just 35 moves.
The victory took Anand to 3.5 points out of a possible 5 and he now leads by a huge 2 points margin. The fact that both his victories have come as black is a clear indication that Anand is simply turning out to be the much better prepared player in the match.
With seven rounds still to come it's probably not all-over for Kramnik, but the Russian will have to strike back very quickly in order to stay in the match. As things stand, Anand has four white games remaining out of sevens and some experts say that the Indian is all set to retain the World Championship crown.
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