Match of the Decade turns into Battle of the Sissies

As I type this, the 12th and final regular game of the world chess championships match is about half-way in. To mind, it’s heading inevitably towards a draw, leaving us the prospect of quick-play tiebreak games on Thursday.

I was expecting – fearing – a boring, conservative opening by both players. But, inconceivably, the players even managed to disappoint me further.

Lasker’s Defence, Queen’s Gambit Declined. For those non-chessplayers, it’s like playing the front-foot defence every ball in a cricket match. For the non-cricketers, it’s like playing with all mid-fielders and defenders. For the non-footballers among you: seriously, harden up.

Which is exactly what Anand and Topalov should do. Not one 1.e4 game, and realistically not one effort by a player playing black for a win. Don’t get me wrong; some of the games had a bit of flair to them in the later stages, and there were the odd tactics floating around. But that’s to be expected: these are two of the greatest attacking players of the contemporary era, and they should be able to find something exciting out of anything.

But they shouldn’t have to search hard for something sharp. They should initiate creative positions and really start to rock and roll. No wonder spectators have shifted to poker: the world’s top poker players risk their entire chip stack on an hourly basis.  How hard is it to man up and play an aggressive chess opening once in 12 games?!

Hopefully they’ve both got a separate repertoire of sharp openings for the quicker tie-break games. Hopefully. In the meantime, I have an old piece of Aussie advice for our two world championship contenders:

Grow a pair.