Grandmaster games · World Championship match 2013
The Chennai Squeeze
A level queenless ending, no brilliancy, and a world champion who slips once in 58 moves: how Carlsen won game five of the 2013 title match.
The setting
Chennai, 15 November 2013, the Hyatt Regency. The 12-game match between the champion, Viswanathan Anand, and the challenger, Magnus Carlsen, stands level at two points each after four draws. Carlsen has White and opens 1.c4, Anand answers with the Queen's Gambit family, and after 4.e4 the game heads for a queenless middlegame. For fifty moves the evaluation stays within a narrow band around zero. Then Anand makes one error in a rook ending, and Carlsen's a-pawn runs. The win put Carlsen 3 to 2 ahead; Carlsen won game six the next day and took the title 6.5 to 3.5 after ten games.
Why study it
Nothing in this game is flashy, which is the point. Live it from Carlsen's chair and you see how Carlsen asks a small question on every move and waits for the answer to be wrong. Live it from Anand's chair and you see a champion defending a position that is equal on paper and uncomfortable on the board for 50 moves. Stockfish adds a twist: the move the press called the decisive mistake, 45...Rc1+, was nearly harmless, and the game was lost six moves later.
Live it from inside a mind
Each player speaks in the first person, in a voice of their own: what they see, what they fear, the lines they calculate, why they choose. Switch minds at any move.
Magnus Carlsen
White · Norway · 2870 at the time · peak 2882
The challenger and world number one, 22 years old. Seven days after this game Carlsen won the title; a peak rating of 2882 followed six months later.
Viswanathan Anand
Black · India · 2775 at the time · peak 2817
The defending world champion, 43, champion since 2007 and playing at home in Chennai. A fast, practical player who had held every game of the match so far.
Game five, and the match is level at two points each after four draws. Anand has held everything so far, and in front of a home crowd the champion will keep holding if I give an easy position. I do not need a brilliancy. I need a structure with one small thing wrong in it, and a long game in which Anand has to find an exact move every time.
Game five, level at two points each. I hold the title, I am at home in Chennai, and four draws show that I can hold Carlsen when I choose the lines. I will play solid, sound chess, give no easy targets and look for the sharp chance when it appears. The danger is a long game in which one small inaccuracy is all Carlsen needs.
The game in 8 chapters
- 1
A gambit pawn in a Semi-Slav moves 1–6
Carlsen builds a three-pawn centre with 4.e4, regains the pawn on e4 and answers the bishop check quietly with Nc3. Anand hits d4 at once with ...c5 while the knight is pinned.
- 2
Castling into a knight trade moves 7–12
The pawn fork on d4 forces Nxd4, Anand hunts the bishop on e3 with ...Ng4, and Carlsen castles long and lets the trade happen.
- 3
Queens off, the king stays in the middle moves 13–17
13...Bc7 lets Carlsen swap knights and queens with check. Anand ends up with two bishops, an isolated c6 pawn and a king on e7.
- 4
The bishop pair for a b-pawn moves 18–23
18.Ne4 and 19.c5 force Anand to give up the bishop on b6. After 19...f5 and 21.b7 the pawns come off the board and Black is left with an isolated pawn on c6.
- 5
Thirty moves of small questions moves 24–39
Carlsen doubles on the f-file, plays Rf6 to tie Anand's bishop and rook, and keeps the bishops on. Anand answers with ...g5, ...h5, ...h4, and ...Rd4 and ...c5 activity.
- 6
Pawns fall moves 40–45
Carlsen takes g5, trades one pair of rooks and wins the e5 pawn. 45.Bh7 saves the bishop with a threat of Bg8+, and 45...Rc1+ goes after g2.
- 7
Bishops off, a pawn up moves 46–51
A skewer on the long diagonal and a rook check let Carlsen trade the bishops on Carlsen's terms and win a second pawn on h4. Anand plays 51...Ke6, the only moment where Stockfish sees the game turn.
- 8
The a-pawn runs moves 52–58
52.a4 starts a passed pawn that Anand's king cannot reach. The rook cuts the king off on the seventh rank, the pawn reaches a7, and Anand stops the clock after 58.h4.