Careful defense brought Russian challenger Vladimir Kramnik a draw against world chess champion Viswanathan Anand of India on Thursday in the seventh game of their championship match. The draw means that Anand leads 5-2, maintaining his three-point advantage in the 12-game match. While the draw moves Anand closer to retaining his title, it also stems a bad run for Kramnik, who had lost three of the last four games. He now has three Whites in the last five games with which to try to stage a comeback. American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan praised Anand's “dominating performance so far” and said there hasn't yet been “a return of service” from Kramnik. Seirawan said he thought Kramnik was “very fortunate. He made a few inaccuracies and was on the edge” of losing. With Black, Kramnik chose the Slav Defense and the players followed the first playoff game between Kramnik and Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in their 2006 reunification match until Kramnik varied on move 15. Anand called the line “interesting.” Kramnik said it was “maybe not the best choice” given his large deficit, but “it's not so easy to get winning chances” with Black against 1.d4. Kramnik's 17th move, giving up his bishop for a knight, was new. Preserving the bishop was probably safer but, given his deficit, he had to unbalance the position. Seirawan thought that Kramnik might have been hoping for a good-knight-versus-bad-bishop position. If so, he quickly got the opposite. Anand rated his position “slightly better” because “Black's knight is much weaker than White's bishop.” Kramnik exchanged queens on move 21 and offered a draw. He said afterward that he may have been “a little bit overoptimistic” in making the offer. Kramnik's 28th move gave up a pawn with the idea of setting up an impregnable fortress. He criticized Anand's 30th move as missing “the last chance to play for a win.” In the end, Anand took the pawn and all of the pieces came off, leaving a king-and-pawn endgame, at which point the players promptly shook hands after move 36. Kramnik will have the white pieces in game eight Friday. The moves: Anand-Kramnik, Game 7: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 O-O 11. Bd3 Bh5 12. e5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5 14. Qe3 Re8 15. Ne1 Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. Nd3 Qb6 18. Nxb4 Qxb4 19. b3 Rac8 20. Ba3 Qc3 21. Rac1 Qxe3 22. fxe3 f6 23. Bd6 g5 24. h3 Kf7 25. Kf2 Kg6 26. Ke2 fxe5 27. dxe5 b6 28. b4 Rc4 29. Rxc4 dxc4 30. Rc1 Rc8 31. g4 a5 32. b5 c3 33. Rc2 Kf7 34. Kd3 Nc5+ 35. Bxc5 Rxc5 36. Rxc3 Rxc3+ draw agreed.
