Viswanathan Anand, the world chess champion from India, is in danger of being dethroned.

On Sunday, he lost Game 7 of his title match to Boris Gelfand, the Israeli grandmaster. It was the first victory by either player. Gelfand now leads the best-of-12 match, 4 points to 3.

The match is being held in Moscow in the Tretyakov Gallery museum. The prize fund is $2.55 million, with 60 percent going to the winner.

Given how short the match is, a loss is very hard to come back from. Though Anand will have White in three of the last five games — which is an advantage — he did not really come close to beating Gelfand in the three previous games in which he was White.

Anand’s loss on Sunday was mostly from self-inflicted wounds. Gelfand did not play in a particularly enterprising manner. Instead, Anand just made small strategic errors and then a bigger one. That allowed Gelfand to build an advantage until there was nothing that Anand could do to save the game.