Bonn (Germany): World Champion Viswanathan Anand called the shots again and dumped Russian Vladimir Kramnik in the sixth game with white pieces to extend his lead to 3 points at the half way stage of what is turning out to be incredibly one-sided world championship match.
The Indian ace took his tally to 4.5 points and is now just two points away from establishing himself as the all-time-great world champion having won the knockout world championship in 2001, the world championship match tournament last year and now this world championship match which looks as good as over.
Kramnik who lost the third, and fifth game earlier, simply looked out of sorts yet again and his inclination to go for unwarranted complications did not help his cause in anyway.
Anand stuck the Queen pawn opening for the third time in as many white games and Kramnik replied with the Nimzo Indian defence and went for the Romanishin variation.
Anand avoided the early trade of queens and went for some complications to retain winning chances. However after Kramnik successfully changed queens, most of the experts were of the opinion that the Russian will be able to hold his position together.
That was not to be as Kramnik misjudged his chances when he went for a pawn sacrifice on the 18th move and found his position tumbling as Anand came up with some perfect defensive moves that also helped him improve the position of his pieces.
Down a pawn and left to do the difficult defense task, Kramnik could not find a better reposte than going for heavy activity with another pawn sacrifice but Anand simply poured cold water on the plans with his machine-like-technique.
Digesting both the pawns Anand created a perfect harmony between his pieces and when the opportunity came, sacrificed one of the pawns back temporarily to lend the decisive blow.
The outcome of the game was clear when Anand's pawn thrust came on move 38 and Kramnik fought in vain for 47 moves till Anand made a new queen on board - before finally calling it a day.
As thing stand, Anand leads by 4.5-1.5 and the match is expected to get over sooner than the stipulated 12 games unless a disaster strikes the Indian. With three white games remaining, the Indian can simply relish the dish called Kramnik.
The world championship is a 12-games match with a prize pool of 1.5 million Euros divided equally irrespective of the outcome of the match. Wednesday is the third rest day and the battle will resume on Thursday now.
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