Sicilian in progress. Already the pieces are depleted to a large extent. Would have preferred more crowd on the board for it to continue remaining interesting. Be that as it may. Please keep posting comments.

Draw in 27 moves. Despite the short game and result, this was a much more intense game, with both players deviating from previous games and playing a completely different opening. Gelfand looks incredibly solid at this point; GM Arkadij Naiditsch, commenting on ChessBomb, makes a good point: "Tomorrow Gelfand is White again and we hope to see finally Boris as prepared with White as he is with Black, that would mean a big fight!"

Mitzvah is doing a great job mixing it up with Black, with Sicilians and Gruenfelds. But he hasn't made Two Sheds sweat a drop in his two Whites.

Thanks to color switch day, Mitzvah should have White in the next two games. If he wants to have chances, he'd better be able to make something of that opportunity.

It looks likely that the match will be decided by one or more black wins, rather than white ones. Black openings have been active ones so far, an it's white's reluctance to go for the jugular that has led them to peter out to draws. Once white shows ambition, and takes some risk, black may be in a better position to turn it around. But I have doubts whether Gelfand intends to risk anything. So, it'll all boil down to when Anand risks something with white. Shorter games are working against Anand's favor, as he's not able to force any errors out of Gelfand. He'll have to leave preparation zone early, to force Gelfand to be on his own for a considerable length, with pieces on board.