Anand Has +3 Lead In World Chess Championship Match

Viswanathan Anand, the current World Chess Champion is currently playing a World Championship match in Bonn, Germany against Vladimir Kramnik. The match consists of 12 matches, of which 8 have been played and Anand leads 6.0-3.0. The Gambit blog of The New York Times has excellent coverage of the matches. Anand just needs to draw one of the last three matches to retain his title.

Anand has won Games 3, 5 and 6, primarily through superior opening preparation and typical tactical brilliance. It's pretty surprising for more matches to be won with the Black pieces (which plays second) than the White pieces at the grandmaster (or supergrandmaster) level. The diagram above shows the winning move in Game 5, where Black sacrifices his Knight to get a pawn which cannot be prevented from becoming a Queen. The next few moves would be forced: 35. fe3 fe3 36. (anything!) e2 37. (anything!) e1Q.