When Viswanathan Anand was scoring against Vladimir Kramnik in the World Chess Championship 2008 at Bonn, former World Champion and the highest ever rated player on this planet, Garry Kasparov, was watching the moves over the internet and applauding good play by Anand.

However, when Anand played the 15th move (1z5.Qa3) against Veselin Topalov in the second game of the World Chess Championship 2010 at Sofia yesterday, "Garry" said he, "left the room in shock after Anand played Qa3." He also said his message to Vishy afterwards was "you can just give up a pawn in every game!" posted Mig Greencard, one of the most read and admired chess bloggers.

Kasparov was not the only one who raised an eyebrow! This move was the most discussed and debated among enthusiasts to top players and commenting Grandmasters to analysts on various chess websites. Was it a home prepared idea, a blunder, a mediocre move, a stroke of genius or Anand simply playing bluff? The internet seems to be buzzing with interpretations and explanations and there is no clear consensus on this one! Interestingly both players made no mention of this move in the mandatory press conference after the game. However Anand did spend considerable amount of time thinking before this move.

Expert views

"Later it worked well for Anand. At the time I doubted the objective evaluation of the move, but after seeing the whole game I was wondering - maybe it was pure genius, from a psychological point of view."
ufffd Dutch National champion Anish Giriu00a0 in chess website 'ChessBase'

"A novelty and objectively a bad one but I think Vishy's idea here was just to take Topalov out of his preparation even at the cost of fighting for an objective advantage."
ufffd IM Malcom Pein in reputed chess website 'The Week in Chess'