SOFIA - GAME 5 - Another Slav and draw

More than the moves on the board, the mind games were interesting as both Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand tried to test each other in the 5th game of their World Chess Championship match in Sofia on Friday.
Both players tried to guess what the rival team has prepared on the rest day as they battled it out in Slav Defence, the same system that they played in the drawn third game. They rattled off the first 13 moves, all repeat of the third game, within 3-4 minutes, each trying to gauge what nasty surprises the rival team has prepared. Anand got a chance to improve his play from the previous Slav game and ended up with a better position for his pieces. Anand deviated first from Game 3 by moving his pawn to h5 instead of h6 and in the end it looked like he prevented Topalov from uncorking any surprise moves that his team had found in the last couple of days.
In the end, the result was the same, a draw, this time in 41 moves. In the third game they took two more moves and this time Topalov ended the game in draw by repetition of moves. Anand maintained his one point lead with the score 3-2 after five games.
The draw was good for Anand as he will now play with white pieces in the next two games – thus getting a chance to put pressure on Topalov by opting for some home preparation. Whether he would try the Catalan once again is the moot question that would be answered on Saturday. Also of interest would be Topalov’s response to Anand’s opening. He has been able to play his home preparation only in the first game in which Anand played very poorly and was unable to put to sword the Bulgarian’s actual preparation. Now as the match reaches half-way stage, Topalov has to do something drastic to wrest back the initiative. He has been able to capitalise on only one white game of the three as Anand played very solid chess to deny him any chances. Anand has won both of his white games so far.
On Friday too, the Bulgarian tried a lot but the fact that Anand deviated from the third game early, thwarted him from gaining much from the opening phase. He had slight advantage but Anand had enough chances of equalising and he managed that without much trouble.
Topalov did press a bit for victory but Anand is always very strong in positional play and exhibited his prowess by choosing the right moves to end Topalov’s hopes. The Bulgarian did not press too much and drew the game through repetition of moves,