BONN, Germany: Viswanathan Anand of India retained his world chess title Wednesday by drawing with the white pieces against Russian challenger Vladimir Kramnik.
The 24-move draw gave Anand a 6.5-4.5 victory in the best-of-12 game match, one of the shortest championship matches in history.
Down two points, Kramnik needed to win with Black, a nearly impossible task at this level. Instead he had to concede a draw after a short but tough fight.
After the game, Anand said he was "more relieved than happy."
He dominated the first half of the match, winning three games and drawing the other three.
Kramnik gradually got back on his feet and played much better in the second half of the match.
"I finally started to get some decent positions," he said.
Anand admitted that he was nervous going into game 11.
"Getting one draw in three games doesn't seem like a big task but nerves come into play and you can never be sure," Anand said.
The 12-game match format makes it difficult for a player to overcome an early deficit. From 1951 to 1972 — when Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky — matches were normally 24 games.
Since then the trend has been toward shorter matches. In 2000 Kramnik defeated Garry Kasparov in a 16-game match.
Kramnik said that perhaps a match longer than 12 games would be best and suggested 14.
"Twelve is fine; you get to show enough," Anand said. He lost a 20-game match to Kasparov in 1995.
But the pair agreed that the world championship should be decided in match, not tournament, play. Anand took the title from Kramnik in a tournament last year.
Anand chose this game to switch back to his normal 1.e4 after playing 1.d4 previously in the match. Kramnik responded with the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense, a variation he rarely plays but one of which Anand frequently uses both sides.
Anand said afterward that Kramnik's choice "surprised me a little bit. The position got very sharp very quickly."
Kramnik said he was "quite happy" to play the Najdorf, though he acknowledged that he had "no clue at all about the theory."
From move six onward, he was in a line he had never played before. He said that he found his ninth move over the board and didn't know if it had been played before. Anand called the ninth move "quite interesting" and said the critical moment came after Kramnik's 12th move, which was the first new move of the game.
While the position might objectively have favored White, pragmatically Kramnik had achieved the kind of unbalanced position he needed — both players had chances. Kramnik's kingside pawn structure was shattered and he had tripled pawns, but he had the two bishops and one of the pawns was an extra.
Anand said his 13th move, which brought his queen to the center with threats on both sides of the board, came just in time.
On move 15, Kramnik faced a critical choice. He said later that castling "was maybe not good but the only chance to fight" for a win. He played the objectively best move, which allowed Anand to regain his pawn.
Kramnik was hoping for Anand to play a plausible developing move on 19 after which he would have "tricks all over the board." Instead, Anand had what Kramnik called "a very cool reaction" — he simply traded off one of Kramnik's bishops and moved his king to safety.
Anand said that at that point, he knew he was out of danger.
On move 22 Anand forced the exchange of queens into a favorable endgame.
"I had no tricks anymore," Kramnik said. "Maybe I can hold the position but it's clear that I have no winning chances."
He said Anand's team "was more clever and more precise" in their pre-match preparations.
He offered the draw after his 24th move, which Anand accepted as the audience burst into applause.
A purse of 1.5 million euros ($1.94 million) is to be equally divided between the two, as agreed before the match began.
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