At the end of the day, when 2 equally matched players face off, the results will be very close, and that's what we saw in Moscow 2012. Attrition prevailed in the end, and Anand's clock management enabled him to benefit from it today. But both are worthy of the championship in my view, and both showed great class and professionalism.

As for the match style, Vishy put it best. With so few errors happening, any one might prove fatal, and in that vein, both players needed to play more conservatively, and that's what they did, and who am I to blame them?

If you make it a point that you MUST have a clear winner (i.e. no joint championship), then you are left with less than ideal choices in ANY sporting event (think PKs in the World Cup Soccer). I would even prefer adding 2 more rapid chess games with a bigger break in between, before going to blitz. I would have NOT been happy if the championship had been decided in blitz play, and thankfully that did not happen.

It was a great experience watching this match and I really liked the live feed and commentary from a variety of chess stars such as Kramnik. I know I have to visit Tretyakov some day! Also great of Jennifer and Natalia to take time to fraternize with the common people like us during the matches. :)

Most of my fellow kibbitzers were great too, with the possible exception of a few who might have had too much caffeine this morning. :) Get some rest tonight and try some yoga, and the world will be good again...

Kind of a circular argument. We know they're evenly matched because they tied, and they tied because they're evenly matched. It's self-fulfilling but doesn't demonstrate anything.

<...which is why the tiebreaker should have been played first.>

I would have to disagree with this.

Please peruse this from chessbase:

<About NIIT MindChampions’ Academy

NIIT MindChampions’ Academy is a joint initiative by NIIT, a leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia’s largest IT Trainer, and World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand, to initiate young minds into the world of chess. Established in 2002, the Academy has fostered over 11,000 chess clubs with more than one million students as its members, in schools across India. GM Viswanathan Anand has personally travelled across India, spreading the message for enhancing thinking skills by learning chess and motivating the school students. NIIT Mind Champions’ Academy conducts an annual event for the academy’s members. The academy provides teaching learning materials on chess, which includes computer based tutorials, video based mentoring by Viswanathan Anand, chess software, puzzles and a database of games.

NIIT Nguru is a smarter education solution for schools that utilizes appropriate technology as backbone and encompasses all the possible components required to make the school smarter. NGuru enables the school to move to a higher plane by introducing innovations in the Computer Lab, Subject lab, classrooms and administration...> http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp...

Anand kick started top level chess in India, and during his time as World Champion hundreds of thousands of children in thousands of schools have started the game in that country. He is a national sporting hero, receiving the Sportstar Millennium Award in 1998 from India's premier sports magazine for being the sportperson of the millennium.

pericles of athens: <this is brilliant! quite logical. i've never heard this idea before, but i love it. spicy.>

Took the words right out of my mouth!!! When I read it, I thought, that would have fixed it. Then they would have to battle. One can’t blame them for doing what they did. There weren’t enough games.