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The 11th game of the FIDE World Chess Championship was a clash in an opening entirely different from the earlier games. With his last game with White pieces, Viswanathan Anand decided to start with the English opening, allowing Veselin Topalov to line the favourite reversed Sicilian setup.
Already the 11th move Ne4 was rare in theory and it was obvious that Anand had prepared something down this variation. But Topalov's reply Qe8 immediately threw both players out of home analysis and the play continued with long and careful maneuvers in the middlegame.

Anand enjoyed the possibility of playing with pair of Bishops, but Topalov's position was very compact without any apparent weaknesses to target.

White blocked the opponent's queenside and forced several exchanges hoping to use the outposts on d4 and c6. Black reacted accordingly and the game was level when the first time control was reached.

Suddenly, the apparently clear endgame turned very complicated even if there were only few battling units on the board.

Topalov grabbed some initiative and won the b5-pawn, however, Anand started to coordinate the play on the kingside and obtained good counterplay.

Around the second time control, there were some nice stalemate motifs for White, but the game ended in a draw on the 65th move when the repetition became imminent.

Game-11
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