Anand - Carlsen, the Second Week

We left off last week's post, Anand - Carlsen, the First Week, with game four just having finished in a thrilling draw. Since then, a Google News search on 'anand carlsen' has swelled from 'about 73,300 results' to 'about 82,800 results'. Let's first look at reports from Indian news sources for the five games played during the past week.

• 2013-11-14: World Chess C’ship: Anand admits he was 'lost' in Game Four [firstpost.com]
• 2013-11-16: Carlsen beats Anand in Game 5 of World Chess Championship [indiatimes.com]
• 2013-11-17: Magnus Carlsen wins Game 6; leads Viswanathan Anand 4-2 [dnaindia.com]
• 2013-11-18: World Chess: Game 7 between Anand and Carlsen ends in a draw [indiatimes.com]
• 2013-11-19: Another tame draw as Carlsen retains two points lead against Anand [indiatimes.com; game 8]

With wins for Carlsen in games five and six, it was a great week for the Norwegian grandmaster and a terrible week for Anand. Here are a few background stories that appeared during the week.

• 2013-11-15: Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi may be working with secretive Carlsen [indiatimes.com]
• 2013-11-16: Anand loses game 6: 'Most rook endings lead to a draw, except when Carlsen plays' [hindustantimes.com]
• 2013-11-18: It's Carlsen's throne for the taking [indiatimes.com]
• 2013-11-19: From respect to fear [thehindu.com; Ian Rogers]
• 2013-11-19: Is Friedel rooting for Anand or Carlsen? [indiatimes.com]

One of my personal discoveries during the week was the work of Jaideep Unudurti, writing for the Economic Times. I somehow overlooked his work until now and intend to review his previous articles when I find the time. In the meantime, here are two of his articles from this past week.

• 2013-11-17: Despite trying a hand in Russian politics, Garry Kasparov seems to miss chess [indiatimes.com]; also featured in my post Anand - Carlsen, and Kasparov
• 2013-11-18: Viswanathan Anand draws seventh game; Magnus Carlsen remains two points ahead [indiatimes.com]

With four games to go, Carlsen leads 2-0. Will Anand manage to pull off a miracle? With the odds heavily stacked against that, will he manage to win at least one game? As long as I'm covering Indian sources, let's go back a few months to an interview with Anand that was published just after Carlsen won the London Candidates tournament.

• 2013-04-02: 'Carlsen will be ridiculously difficult to play against' [indianexpress.com]

Q: How different will [the Carlsen match] be from your previous WCC matches? • A: Firstly, he is not from my generation. There is a difference in age and outlook. When I played Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand, I read them in a certain way. And even then, I thought that if I end up playing Vlady this time, it would be a different Vlady from the one I played before. He (Carlsen) is from a different generation and Carlsen is also one of the most talented players from any generation. He will be ridiculously difficult to play against, yeah.

Next week's post might well be the last for this match. I hope you're enjoying the show as much as I am.