He did it! Anand Vishwanathan won the final round (12th) of his match against Veselin Topalov in a thrilling victory as Black (the first time Black won a game in this match, actually), to win the match 6.5-5.5, and retained his world championship title.
Congratulations to Anand for his strong play, and congratulations to both Anand and Topalov for putting on a great show to chess players around the world with their intense, ingenious, and entertaining games, in the best world championship match I have seen in years. Every game was hard-fought, with many implicit draw offers declined. This was one of the great matches in recent chess history.
The game itself started with Anand using the venerable Lasker Defense of the Queen's Gambit Declined, a very solid defense whose goal is to exchange off minor pieces and then free the Queen Bishop with either c5 or e5 to try to achieve equality. A typical late opening position arose after Black played 13...b6:
The plans for both sides are clear out of this opening. White is ahead in development, has more space, has an extra center Pawn (d-Pawn), and will try to pressure Black on the Queen side, especially hitting Black's c-Pawn on the half-open c-file by doubling up Rooks on it, etc. Black, on the other hand, is planning to play c5 and Bb7 to develop by fianchetto his remaining Bishop and make it a powerful force aiming toward White's center (and also King side) along the a8-h1 diagonal.
A few moves later, the character of the middle game became radically transformed:
Anand deliberately allowed himself an isolated c-Pawn in return for getting the Bishop over the Knight. I have to confess that in this position, even though it is equal, I would rather be Black. Black's Bishop can potentially get very powerful. White can try to make progress by trying to win the c-Pawn, but I like Black's Bishop.
The next stage of the game was interesting psychologically. Both sides maneuvered around, with Anand moving his Bishop all over the place, even repeating moves in an implicit offer of a draw. Obviously, he was trying to say to Topalov, "OK, the position seems equal, and I am happy to draw and have the match go to the rapid tie-break match, where I expect to do well, so if you want to win, you might as well vary and take a risk to try to win." Topalov indeed chose to vary, aiming his Rook and Knight at the Queen side, at the expense of moving pieces away from his King side, which is just what Anand wanted, of course! A critical position arose when Anand started an attack on Topalov's center and King side with 30...f5:
The position is still completely equal, and all Topalov had to do was defend his e-Pawn with 31 Nd2. Unfortunately, he decided to open up his own King side to Black's Bishop with 31 exf5? e4 32 fxe4?? Qxe4+ 33 Kh3:
And now, the game was all but over and lost! Unbelievable. I do not understand why Topalov did this. Even without calculating a lot of variations, it must be obvious that White has little to gain from this opening-up of his own King's position. He has a Rook and Knight at the other end of the board that are not useful defenders. The monster Bishop at a8 prevents White's King from ever getting back to g2. Meanwhile, g4 and h5 are completely unprotected and if Black's Queen landed on either square, it would be checkmate already! I can only think that Topalov truly feared going into the rapid playoff match, that he was as good as lost if he didn't complicate this twelfth game, at all costs.
The win for Black is not that easy to find, of course. It took many moves, but Anand did it (he missed several opportunities when he did not play the most decisive continuation, but from a practical point of view, he did not need to, because all he needed to do was find one sure way to win, not necessarily the shortest, possibly more complicated, one). There were a lot of tactical threats involving the perpetual threat of checkmating on g4, and eventually Anand forced the win of material and liquidation into a won endgame, and Topalov resigned:
A brilliant and effective winning attack by Anand, to cap off a fine world championship match!
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