Of Draws, Stats and Cellphones in a Chess Championship

Since we Indians as a people are obsessed with cricket, which in its current avatar seems to have no place for ‘draws’, it is hard to explain how a sporting contest while producing a series of draws can still be interesting enough. Well it can happen in chess, where draws can be somewhat dull (first and second games), draws can be thrilling and exciting (third game) and draws can be ‘not so exciting, but still tolerable’ (fourth game).

So, there you are, four games, four draws and two points each. Eight more games to go. Neither Viswanathan Anand, nor Boris Gelfand have drawn first blood, as yet.

Everybody loves results. The odd one claiming to be a connoisseur might say a draw is equally riveting, but I have my doubts. Hey, who plays for a draw, unless you are leading in a match or a series, as it happens in cricket. You win the first match or Test and draw the rest, bore the spectators to death (Anand and Gelfand haven’t done that, as yet) and go on to win the series.

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Every sports lover is a secret stats junkie. I claim I don’t like stats, but I am usually lying when I say that.

Hey, stats are fun. Tendulkar’s hundred centuries (I wrote a full book on that ‘Sachin – A Hundred Hundreds Now) fascinated me no end, as did Leander’s 13 Grand Slam doubles titles or Anand’s four World Championships and six Oscars (yes, they have them for chess, too!).

Now let me unleash some chess stats. Not since he played eight draws in the first eight games against Garry Kasparov in the 1995 PCA final in New York, has Anand drawn his first four games in a World Championships final match.

In fact, only once since 1995, has he had more than four drawn games in a row – five between the fourth and eighth games of the PCA Candidates final against Gata Kamsky. Anand finally won 6.5-4.5 to qualify to meet Kasparov.

Now for the Slav opening. Vladimir Kramnik played the Slav six times in his 2006 match against Veselin Topalov and on two other occasions he played the semi-slav.

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Anand and Gelfand are still ‘probing’ each other at the Tretyakov Gallery. Witty as usual, Anand, when asked to sum up the first four games, smiled and said, “Well it was four draws….(laughter all around).” And then after a pause added, “The match is just developing. We're still probing. It's very early, you don't really want to be doing evaluations. So far it's a pretty tough match."

Gelfand’s reaction: “I said before I am taking one game at a time. I don’t want to make any assessments at this stage.” Gelfand just did not want to get into an area of discussing strategy, lest he reveal something!

Ah, the secrecy that surrounds the chess world.

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Silence is the buzzword in chess. Even though the two players inside the Glass Room or Cage, depending on what you want to call it can hardly hear any noise from outside, the only sound that is tolerated is that of ‘creaking’ doors besides the breathing of the spectators, officials and media.

The Glass Cage, we shall stick to that from now, is out of bounds for all save the Chief Arbiter and his deputy, who stay inside it for the entire duration of the game. In addition, two official photographers, one videographer and three other photo journalists can enter the cage/ glassed room for precisely five minutes.

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Sport by its nature detests that one gadget we can’t seem to live without. It is called the cellphone. There are clear instructions outside the playing hall that no visitor can carry cellphones into the playing hall. “We the Media” are a privileged class and can carry cellphones but in the silent mode. For others cellphones need to be deposited at the Gallery’s lobby – the Art Gallery, too, does not allow cellphones – before going up to the Chess Hall.

Despite warnings, two spectators – neither of them Indian or Chinese! – sneaked the ‘illegal object’ inside. Worse, they were not in silent mode. Disaster struck when some friends of theirs decided to call them up at this inappropriate time.

The security promptly threw them out of the Hall! Check and mate!

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.