Translated material
Kramnik's arguments
It seemed that the last third of the match for the chess crown was no longer interesting. To win back “minus three” in four games is from the realm of fantasy! What could prevent Anand from emasculating the game with White? However, in the ninth game he showed himself to be a true world champion. The scenario with White choosing the sharpest anti-Moscow option cannot be called anything other than “I’m coming to you.”
As a result, the audience could enjoy a wonderful performance performed by brilliant actors on the chess stage. Despite the fact that Anand turned down a little-explored path, Kramnik managed to understand the nuances of the position and forced his opponent to fight to save the game. To the credit of the world champion, he deserved the highest rating as a defender. Due to the complications that arose, Anand had to give up his pawn, but he managed to fully use the defensive resources of the position. And although the draw put Kramnik in a critical situation, the nature of the fight played a kind of psychological doping role for him, which allowed him to get out of the “groggy state.”
In the tenth game, the Russian again managed to impose his game on the opponent. In his favorite “Catalan” structure, on move 18 Kramnik used a positional novelty aimed at the advantage of two bishops. The mystery of his home preparation could become apparent four moves later, as Vladimir allowed the possibility of exchanging light pieces, leading to a favorable heavy-piece endgame. However, Anand chose to fight, in which he unexpectedly made an irreparable positional error, which led to defeat on the 29th move. By the last day off, before the two remaining games with the score 6:4, Anand faces the same task as two days earlier - to snatch a winning draw from the embattled Kramnik.
Yesterday in the capital's Central Chess House named after. Botvinnik, in a tiebreaker format (fast chess), a match-tournament was held for the title of Russian champion between the winners of the super final, Peter Svidler, Dmitry Yakovenko and Evgeny Alekseev. Svidler achieved the best result at the decisive stage - 3 points out of 4 possible. He became a five-time Russian champion.