In serious contests, omitting blitz and rapid games, Anand has won 7 games since 1993, while Gelfand has no wins.

However their last serious encounter appears to be in Anand vs Gelfand, 2006 and with Gelfand's recent display of ability to keep it close and wait for a mistake, he could prove to be a dangerous opponent for Anand in a long classical match.

Boris Gelfand

I was lucky I got a position which I knew and I liked in the opening. Black slightly squeezed and that's the main problem.

Alexander tried to find counter-play with putting the Rook to h5 with a threat. I think I played pretty well and after mistake Rb5 even he let me play Qe2 and e4 I think the position is lost. f5 was necessary, maybe I'm better after h5, hard to say. But I think statistically my chances were very good because I think it was the first victory by white in these matches, so it was very unlikely that there would be no victories by white in such a cycle.

Alexander Grischuk

White played an absolutely great game, it started with a novelty b3 which made my position cramped and I had to find this manoeuvre with Ra5-h5 to find any counter-play.

But then Boris found an amazing concept with this f4, just giving up the pawn, it didn't even cross my mind this idea.

And then I thought, like, I have extra pawn, better pawn structure, white squares are weak, at first I thought, but then I realised that I'm just completely lost.

And yes I think it was much better to play f5 to not allow white this pawn avalanche in the centre but still after h5 I don't really trust in black position. I think white will attack, attack, attack after h5. Like Rook to g1, something then exchange queens and then in the endgame Bd5 he will just get an endgame with an extra exchange.

When Grishuk played 17...Rh5 I had the impression that this move is very commital. He either has to win something on the kingside or the rock has a long way back into the game (nedds time and this can be sued from white as happend in th game) The chances that black can increase the pressure move by move on the kingside is low; the knights on c6 and b6 are far away from the kingside and can not be activated, as Black has no pawn center to be used as a shield for the own pieces (moving to the kingside behind this shield).

Yesterday in the evening "ask" my silicon monster and he sees 17...Rh5 as o.k. (0,00), but I disagreeas as mentioned before.

Why not 17...Qd7 18. Bb2 Rea8 19. Ra1 Rxa1 20. Rxa1 Rxa1 21. Bxa1 Nd5 with a o.k. position for Black?

(analyse done without computer, so you may find mistakes and have the opportunity to improve the line)

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Yes, I know it's without a doubt easily refuted and haven't seen just how bad it is using Fritz but my thinking is more along the lines of 'in for a penny...in for a pound'

Therefore if you go from the very last move of the game, to the first until your position matches a theoretical position, I think it could be either Kings Indian or Gruenfeld - it depends what position is matched with first.

My first impression was Black's position was very fragile, he was always vulnerable to a Pawn fork on d5. He lost a lot of time with his "wild Rook" ... flailing about on the 4th rank. Also, Black's position looked much worse, but 32...Qc7 did not look quite right. (I would have to analyze with the computer to come up with something better ... maybe Black was already lost?)

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<position after 20.Qf2>

Here, Grischuk played 20... Bxh4, bye bye Gruenfeld Bishop. Later in the game, Gelfand even declined an exchange sac by Grischuk and instead concentrate on freeing his DSB which doesn't have a counterpart due to that 20... Bxh4.

And finally, on move 27, the DSB took control of the long a1-h8 diagonal which is normally a territory owned by Black's B/g7 ...

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at move 29, the DSB was kicked by 29... f6

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<position after 30.Ba1 ...>

Here, Grischuk made the 2nd major mistake, untimely Rook trade (maybe already due to time trouble)

30... Rc5 31.Rxc5 bxc5

which allowed this Queen sortie

32.Qb5 ...

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http://www.chessintranslation.com/2... , and i believe that this part gives you the answer :

< Boris Gelfand: The line seen today was well-known to me. It was played a lot at the last Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, and Black won some beautiful games there. After the Olympiad, I sat down with Maxim Rodshtein one day to study that variation, and Sasha [Alexander] Huzman was with us as well. I remember 11.Bg4 was a cunning idea to tempt the pawn to h3. It seems absurd, but in some lines you win a tempo with Qc8. We managed to think up the antidote 13. b3. That´s not thought to give you much in the given system, as Black can open the a-file. But as h2-h3 has already been played the bishop on e6 ends up cut-off, and Black has some trouble with counterplay.