Glamour quotient goes down

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There is no doubt that 10 draws took the sheen off the world chess championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Israeli GM Boris Gelfand. Pundits feel that the spate of draws has deprived the title clash of some oomph.

“A little bit of interest was generated when Anand lost and won in the course of the series. But then, with too many draws, the world championship lost charm.

I didn’t watch the last two games. Anand seemed to have put too much pressure on himself,” said international master Raja Ravi Shekhar.

“The two players were close on age and so I think Anand did not take chances. He played it safe.

But we should understand that on character and talent Anand is stronger than Gelfand. That’s why he didn’t take risks,” he added.

Ravi Shekher said the last gripping match played for the world title was between Russian GM Garry Kasparov and English GM Nigel Short.

“The world chess governing body (Fide) has indulged in a lot of tamasha by changing the formats to knockout, round-robin and now back to match format,” he added.

According to the IM, the chess world is now paying more attention to open tournaments. “The open tournaments such as Linares, Tata Steel, Wijk aan Zee and Dos Hermanas generate more interest than the world championship matches these days. The hardcore chess buffs want some real fight on the board and not theoretical, dull draws,” he said.

GM Dibyendu Barua said the sequence of draws at Moscow was a disappointment for Anand fans. “For the popularity of the game, too many draws are not good.

For a layman draws are always boring. But as a chess player I can understand the intensity of the battle and the ensuing psychological effect,” he added.

It may be noted that Anand and Topolov played five decisive games in the previous world chess championship held in Bulgaria two years ago.

In Moscow, there were only two decisive classical games. Further, most of the games ended between move 20 and 30. Only one game went past 40 moves.