Yes it was interesting to watch how quickly his position crumbled.
Overall, it seems to me like Anand is a more mature player and his win in this match was fully deserved. I am looking forward when some stronger player like Carlsen or even the younger guys will challenge him.
Even if you don't see that specific move you see that your king is going to a corner. The bishop in a8 controls the long diagonal and is pointing directly at your king. Your rocks are uncoordinated while black's will soon be doubled and will control the d file.
Yep. Even if Topalov missed 34...Qe8!, he should have seen how dangerous it was to open the diagonal for the bishop and walk his king to h3. Maybe he thought he could outplay Anand in a complicated position, but Vishy was more than up to the task. (His technique for the final 20 moves was flawless.)
Maybe Topalov realized that he would be a big underdog in a rapid/blitz playoff against Anand and decided to take his chances in the last slow time-control game.
36...Qd8+ only looks better to a computer. The idea is 37. f6 hxg4 38.Nxg4 gxf6 threatening ...Rh7+ or 37. Kg3 Qd6+ 38. Kh4 Qh6!
But Anand's 36...g5+ is much easier for a human to play. It's easier to see White's reasonable responses and how to deal with them.
Anand never made a move that let go of his winning advantage, and all the (mild) criticisms of his play are based on moves that computers think win a little faster; but a human should play to win as reliably as possible, and that's what he did.
I am astonished though by Topalov's mistakes capturing the f and e pawns. They were inexplicable, because they're not really tactical errors at all; they simply show terrible positional misunderstanding.
37. Kh3 Qg5 threatening mayhem on g4. Best is 38. Qg1 to protect g4; then ...Re7 gets rid of the knight, one way or another, and g4 goes bang anyway.
37. Kg3 Qd6+; Kh3 or Kh4 Qh6 threatening mayhem on the h-file.
37. f6 Rf7 followed by hxg4 and g3+ and the WK has nowhere to hide. If, say, 38. Qf1 hxg4; Kg3 to stop this then Qd6+; Kh4 g3+ and White is toast. In some variations B can just play ...Rxf6 instead of ...hxg4, and again the WK ends up with nowhere to hide.
(I'm a patzer, or more precisely a rusty club-level player; the above is the result of some experimenting with a strong computer program. I may have missed important things.)
