London Chess Classic 2010

London Chess Classic 2010, Round 3, Kensington Olympia, 10 December

The Times crossword is now so perfectly designed that it takes exactly the train journey from Portsmouth to Waterloo to do it and allow 10 minutes to put your pen back in your pocket and then artfully fold the paper to show anybody who wants to look that you've finished it.

8 Down, Cloisonne, was my favourite, 16 Down Maharishi was good, etc. but the real intellectual business of the day was to be the highest rated ever chess tournament to be held in Britain on the day that the top two players in the world were to play each other.

One of the long-odds outsiders, Luke McShane, pictured above in the foreground of a picture of me, had beaten hot favourite, Magnus Carlsen, on day one and so the cat was already among the proverbial pigeons and then with McShane winning again in round two, it was looking like one of those horse races where the 100/1 shot goes off much too fast for his own good. But, hats off to Luke, because with wins counting three points here rather than one, it makes a big difference.

Action was set in motion by a selected child making the opening move for World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. Organiser Malcolm Pein asked the mascot if he was going to ask Anand which move he wanted or if he was going to play a move of his own. It could have been bad for Anand as the junior player declared their intention to play a move of their own, but when it turned out to be e4, the situation was saved because that's what the Indian maestro wanted anyway.

Hikaru Nakamura, the American 'A bomb', did his usual blitz through his moves, using much less than an hour all told while David Howells took every second of his allotted time. The Nakamura Queen was unable to get beyond the Howells' Rook and Bishop fortress, though, and they were first to finish, drawing by repeated position.

On the opposite side of the stage, the British numbers one and two also made a draw when Nigel Short defended his awkward position with doubled pawns on e7 and e6 against Michael Adams.

McShane might have been making inroads into Kramnik but it was an interestingly open position that was probably always going to be drawn with possibilities for both. Having to leave soon after 7 p.m., I found out the result back here at home.

It was a shame that Anand had to test and ask so many questions of Carlsen before winning because I thought I was going to be able to see the finish of that and the inquest but I left thinking that Carlsen was losing but might somehow hang on. It wasn't to be. Anand prefers to stay in his chair, as does the highly concentrated Howells, while the other players wander about the stage, and off it, for a stretch of the legs or a nosey look at the other boards, as if they need even more chess than they already have in progress. Anand has the dignified demeanour and patience of a doctor and when I get poorly, I'll be glad to trust his diagnosis. Having contrived an attacking position against Carlsen, who was manning the barricades grimly in the corner, he had to fiddle and prod away at the Norwegian's defences with calm but terrible inevitability. When other sports are said to be 'like a game of chess', the commentators might refer to a game like this to see that only a game of chess can be quite as much 'like a game of chess' as this one. If you see what I mean.

But, Anand is the tip to win this tournament now with Carlsen perhaps not at his best for reasons of his own. And, for calm and carefulness, Viswanathan Anand, having seen him in the flesh, is probably promoted to my favourite current chess player, if I'm ever asked in a questionnaire to name one. Although it has to be said that out of all the people in the auditorium or commentary room, I probably had the least idea of anyone apart from a few juveniles as to exactly what was going on up there on the boards.

Kramnik didn't use the move I suggested (Nd4, yes, it was presumably a rubbish idea) to the spectator next to me in my most hushed of whispers. Conversations aren't encouraged in the room where the action is but I was potentially going to be embarrassed when this man next to me had his mobile phone go off and we were treated to a long stare from the adjudicator. Look, I've never met this bloke before and it can't have been me because I'm one of the last of the golden generation of old fogeys who don't own any gadget of mobile telephony.

But it was another entrancing day out and a look into a strange, heavily male-dominated world that I'll never feel a part of and will always have to guard against expressing an opinion about(which isn't like me at all) because I know that whereas on a train ride I can sometimes finish The Times crossword, there is no way I could finish a chess match with any of these people in anything other than second place.