Chess Satranç ajedrez échecs schaken Schach scacchi escacs xadrez şah шахматы šahmaty

Anand again has the white pieces against Kramnik in the 7th round of the lopsided World Chess Championship. Is it all over? Even a draw as the match progresses towards its end, is bad for Kramnik. Yet, Kramnik is not even able to draw comfortably, forget winning! Nigel Short called the consecutive whites "another of FIDE's quirks" on one of the Chess servers. Some facts before this game: -- Kramnik has never beaten Anand with black -- Kramnik lost the match against Shirov in 1998 with -3, but never lost two games in a row. -- Kramnik has come back in matches, but never from such a huge deficit

Anand Kramnik Live Coverage The lots have been drawn and Kramnik will play with the white pieces on the first day. It is usually good to have the white pieces since the player can choose to start aggressively and get the psychological edge. Also, since opening preparations are of the highest quality during such matches, Kramnik has a chance to strike with deadly effect. Anand would have prefered the white pieces definitely since he likes to attack. From our observations of most matches, we see that the first game is usually drawn since the players are more than happy to play a solid game and calm the dangling nerves. As both Anand and Kramnik mentioned in yesterday's press conference, they are very keen to start playing. Prepartion for World Class matches is brutal and this keeness is understandable.

We continue the Kramnik - Anand matches with the game at Dos Hermanas, 1996. By this time, the two players were among the very top players in the world, with Anand having the advantage of having played the World Championship match against Kasparov. Watch the game and read more...

The first decisive result in the games between Anand and Kramnik was a win by Anand with black in the Max Euwe Memorial at Amsterdam in 1996. But Kramnik struck back with a win at the Dos Hermanas tournament in the same year.