Moscow: Viswanathan Anand’s defensive wall, based on a queen sacrifice, saved him the day in the ninth game of the World Chess Championship, here on Wednesday.

This has been the longest game of the match so far with 49 moves lasting a little under five hours.

Coming to terms with his quick loss in the previous game, Boris Gelfand looked to have got over his disappointment and fought his best for a win.

The growing support for Gelfand at the venue saw the arrival of Natan Sharansky, former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and a former Soviet immigrant who was a chess prodigy himself. Unlike Anand, Gelfand has been accompanied by a large delegation from the Israeli chess fraternity.

As predicted widely, Anand chose to abandon the Slav Defence employed in all the previous black games and pitched for the Nimzo Indian Defence.

Unlike the previous games when the pawn structure in the centre was of a locked nature, ninth game featured an isolated d4-pawn for white, ensuring a dynamic battle.

Once again, Gelfand got to pressure Anand with the white pieces, but in a potentially tactical position instead of a maneuvering game.

Though Anand’s exchanging the dark squared bishop for white’s knight was standard opening theory, his decision to give up the other bishop too for a knight with 15…Bf3 was questionable. Gelfand obtained a position where he seemingly held all the trumps.

Pointing to the position later, Anand admitted, “Obviously, I messed something up in the opening. My position is much worse (here)”.

Russian Grandmasters Peter Svidler and Sergey Shipov too favoured Gelfand’s position here, as White had two bishops against black’s two knights in an open position. By 17th move, it looked as if Gelfand had a dream position, with two active bishops in an open position. Svidler also questioned Anand’s current form as the reigning champion was once again seen taking a lot of time for his moves initially.

Anand’s defensive strategy was to provoke Gelfand into playing 19.c5 which seemed to be a forcing variation and win black’s queen. Later on Gelfand admitted that he considered playing 19.a3 in the position which could have kept all the advantages and resulted in a more complex game.

When Gelfand took the bait and forced matters, it was clear that Anand had planned to sacrifice his queen in reply. He steered the game into a concrete position where he had a Rook and knight against Gelfand’s queen. Black had chances of a draw because his position was solid.

Even with only a minutes on his clock, Gelfand was bold in quest for a victory. He took his king on a walk to the kingside, in an effort to harass black’s king.

Anand finally achieved a defensive ‘fortress’, a positional endgame device when the defending side with the lesser material achieves an impenetrable configuration of pieces.