Rediff

Bonn, Oct 25: Viswanathan Anand took yet another step, coming within one game of retaining his world title, as he drew the eighth game and took his tally to 5.5 points as against Vladimir Kramnik's 2.5 in the 12-game World Chess Championship final in Bonn.

Anand now needs just one point from remaining four games to be crowned world champion yet again.

The game ended in a 39-move draw from Queen's gambit declined as Anand chose the sharp Vienna variation.

There was much speculation if Anand would once again play in Slav, as he did in previous two black games, which he won. But he was clearly not going to overdo it.

The next game is slated for Sunday with Anand having white pieces.

Anand showing tremendous preparation with black came up with a novelty on the 10th move and in the middle game he was testing Kramnik with sharp play. Anand did not resort to castle yet again.

But Kramnik made no mistakes but was not able to find a win he so desperately needed to keep himself in the fight.

Kramnik attacked on the king-side while Anand had managed to open a file on queenside and 'connect' his pieces well. When the draw was agreed upon, Kramnik did have a slight advantage but not enough to squeeze a win.

Anand has won the third, fifth and sixth games, while the rest have been drawn.

The match consists of twelve games, played under classical time controls: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61.

The prize fund is 1.5 million Euro (approximately US $2.35 million), including taxes and FIDE license fees, and is split equally between the players.