World Chess Champion: Bulgaria Star Topalov Surprised Me

After retaining the world chess title after a tight 6.5:5.5 victory in Sofia, India’s Viswanathan Anand has said that his Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov managed to surprise him.

Anand, speaking in an interview for The Hindu, said “In one sense, I think, I misjudged him. He made certain changes during the match. One of the things we assumed was, he always likes moving around in matches.”

He continued; In terms of the opening preparation, we made some bad calls. The team did some excellent work but in a match it is not about excellent work but making the right judgement call.If you prepare something and it does not get played, it is not much use. So in that sense, he did surprise me.

Anand also concluded that Topalov “took a big gamble” in the decisive final game. He added; “Now it seems obvious to me that this gamble was wrong. I realised he missed my queen move but still, when my bishop is on the big diagonal like that, and to allow me to open it, he took the decision very late.”

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