On Monday Vladimir Kramnik won the World Cup in Tromsø, Norway. The 14th World Champion easily held a draw with the black pieces — in fact when Dmitry Andreikin realized he was getting into trouble, he offered a draw on move 34.

Photos by Paul Truong

After 23 days of chess, and a tournament that started with 128 players from all over the world, the FIDE World Cup finally came to an end on Monday. Dmitry Andreikin needed to beat Vladimir Kramnik to force a tiebreak, but didn't manage to do so. In a much better position, Kramnik accepted his opponent's draw offer with a smile and became the winner of the 2013 World Cup. A deserved winner!

Andreikin's strategy for that last classical game made sense, and was somewhat similar to Garry Kasparov's opening choice in 1987 in Seville, when he needed to beat Anatoly Karpov to tie the match and keep his title. A quiet English opening (Kasparov also played 1.c4!), some manoeuvring, and trying to get something going.

Andreiking managed to get a lively position, and when he pushed his g-pawn he was quite optimistic, but Kramnik always felt comfortable and the computer agrees.

Source: chessvibes.com

All hail king Anand. Anand defeated Kramnik in a 12 game Match to retain his title as the Undisputed Chess World Champion. Anand first won the crown as the Undisputed Chess Champion in a tournament in Mexico 2007 after Kramnik had Unified the title ealier on that year by defeating Topalov in a highly controvestial Match marred by the famous "Toilet Gate" Scandal.
















But Few really recognized Anand as a real champion since he won the tile in a tournament but he has more than convinced any doubters of his championship credentials by soundly beating Kramnik. For long periods in the match, Anand was hardly in trouble.
















He out prepared and out played Kramnik by taking Vladmir out of his comfortable zone and placing the game in complex positions. Such is the astounding aspect of his victory since Kramnik had a reputation as one of best prepared players. Such was his desperation for victory, Kramnik had to reply Anand's E4 with the Sicilian Nadjorf one of the sharpest opening which he had previously never scored a victory with. Previously, In the match, Anand had been playing D4 as white and this meant Kramnik had to abandon his tried and tested Petroff which would have garanted a least a draw. Anand scored victory in game 3, 5 ,6 while kramnik got his sole victory in game 10. The final Score was 6.5- 4.5.
The following is a quote by Kasparov to Mig Greengard, and published on ChessBase:

[In this match] Kramnik did not expect tough, sharp challenges with white and this was the key for Anand. He kicked some sand in Kramnik's face and hit Kramnik's weakness: his conservative approach to the game itself. Suddenly Kramnik had to fight in these sharp positions and he wasn't able to do it. This result ends the illusion that Kramnik is a great match player. London was a unique occurrence and I still stand with Leonid Yudasin as the only players Kramnik has ever beaten in a match! Kramnik now has some work to do. His overly-defensive play seems to represent a general decline in strength.

Just to mention Kasparov tipped Kramnik to win the match.

Replay the games here



Congratulations Anand.