2013 Men's World chess championship - Anand vs Carlsen

[ajay]

Is another Anand vs Kramnik World Championship coming up?

In a very interesting candidates tournament today Kramnik beat Aronian with black (3rd win in a row) and Carlsen - the world #1, the future world champion(?), the tournament leader and heavily favorite to challenge Anand, was blown to dust by a maverick Ivanchuk with BLACK. And suddenly, it is Kramnik who is on the top now. It was like Carlsen made a bogey and Kramnik a birdie on the 70th hole of the tournament to switch the lead on the top. With two rounds to go and Kramnik on a tear, can Carlsen make a comeback? Well, anything can still happen, but at the moment it is advantage Kramnik.

Ivanchuk is a brilliant player but capable of playing horrendous games too. He has twice lost on time in this tournament itself - but again he almost beat Carlsen in the early round where Carlsen just managed to save his skin. Carlsen had been leading this 8 player and 14 round tournament ever since he caught up with early tournament leader Aronian in the 4th round. Aronian kept pace with Carlsen till the 9th round but stumbled against the last challenger Gelfand clearing Carlsen path to challenge Anand later this year. It all looked normal until the late burst from Kramnik to do a catch up. At the half way in this tournament, Kramnik played good but did not score a single win. Till today it looked unthinkable that its not Carlsen or Aronian who would be leading at the end of 12th round. However, Ivanchuk in his return meeting with Calsen did what he could not do earlier, outplay Carlsen and made this tournament quite interesting.

Although it is rare to see Carlsen losing the control once he takes the lead, but he has the habit to end the tournament very strongly and make a comeback from behind to win the tournament. Can he do it this time? He'll probably need to win the remaining two matches and he is quite capable to do this.

Next round Kramnik (black) will be facing Ivanchuk - Really unpredictable, but Kramnik should hold.
And Carlsen (white) plays Svidler. It was Svidler who gave a knockout blow to Aronian's World championship dream in the 11th round letting only Kramnik in a position to challenge Carlsen.

The final round will see Kramnik(white) vs Gelfand and Carlsen(black) vs Radjabov. Very interesting two rounds to go after a rest day tomorrow.

[jaydeep]

Thanks Ajay for update ... Totally missed that the 2013 Candidates Tournament is going on at London and only last two rounds r remaining.

[ajay]

Jaydeep, sorry for not posting earlier. The 12th round results were so stunning that it finally shook me out of my laziness and I posted here. Before this round, everything was going almost as expected. Carlsen was leading and Aronian looked like the only person who could give fight to Carlsen. Kramnik was the other strong candidate but he did nothing in the first half and it looked like a missed opportunity for him. But in second half Kramnik got the wind and started catching up. Aronian went in a nose dive, losing first to Gelfand, then Swidler and now to Kramnik. Carlsen, who had been escaping some tricky games, finally stumbled against Ivanchuk. So Kramnik is the only unbeaten player in this tournament so far and looking strong.

So now the tournament is on the home stretch. It is now between Carlsen and Kramnik. Kranik has won 3 games in a row. He would probably need another victory in the last two rounds. For Carlsen, any draw in the next two games is equivalent to a loss.

[jaydeep]

Yes, last two rounds will be very entertaining.

Just checking tiebreak rules for this tournament if there is a first place tie -

1. Head-to-Head
2. Number of Wins
3. Sonneborn-Berger Score - This is calculated by taking the total tournament score of the players you beat, plus half of the total tournament score of the players you drew with. Or we can simplify it and just look at the total score of the players you defeated.
4. Rapids

[ajay]

Carlsen scores a full point in the penultimate round after a hard fought victory in a match that lasted for more than 7 hrs. So he now joins Kramnik on the top. If both of them finish equal, Carlsen wins the tournament on tiebreak and right to challenge Anand.

By the way, I got the order of rounds wrong in my earlier mail. The quote below is true for the final round.

Next round Kramnik (black) will be facing Ivanchuk - Really unpredictable, but Kramnik should hold.
And Carlsen (white) plays Svidler. It was Svidler who gave a knockout blow to Aronian's World championship dream in the 11th round letting only Kramnik in a position to challenge Carlsen.

By the way, Ivanchuk after playing brilliant game against Carlsen, once again floundered and lost on time. So tomorrow is the final day and we would know who is the next challenger. Carlsen has to try for another win to make absolutely sure of winning the tournament. If he draws, his fate would depend upon Kramnik-Ivanchuk game where Kramnik can get on top by beating Ivanchuk.

[jaydeep]

So drama continue till last round ...

[kujo]

High drama indeed in the last round shoot out, to determine which candidate will challenge Anand!

Svidler and Ivanchuk both won!! i.e) Carlsen and Kramnik both lost, were tied for first place and tie breaker rules were applied to determine Carlsen as the next Candidate! What a dramatic set of up and down results in the last 3 rounds of this tournament.

http://london2013.fide.com/index.php

Carlsen wins FIDE World Chess Candidates' Tournament after bizarre finish
Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE Candidates' Tournament in London on Monday after a bizarre finish of what has become a historic event for chess. Both the Norwegian and the other leader, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, unexpectedly lost their game in the final round, and so they remained tied for first place and Carlsen won on the second tie-break rule: higher number of wins. This means that in the next title match, World Champion Viswanathan Anand will face Carlsen.

I think we have found the secret sauce to re-create this drama. Make them play a different opponent every day and make them play three consecutive days before a rest break. They all are physically and mentally challenged by the third consecutive day's play, which creates some tension & drama....


cheers
kujo

[Prashant]

For chess this is a good result. For Anand, it is the less optimal one. I would have definitely preferred Kramnik as an opponent. Magnus is probably the hardest player to prepare against.

[ajay]

Another dramatic day! Just unbelievable! The slayer comes to the rescue or shall we say Slayer becomes savior! How can you define the drama in this last round that puts to the shade the events of the twelfth round.

First of all Swidler had been playing good chess and even with a difference of 100 ELO points (that's a substantial difference) and Carlsen playing white, it wasn't an easy game for Carlsen. Carlsen preidctably was going for a win to ensure that the other match between Kramnik and Ivanchuk becomes irrelevant. However, Swidler had some other design. He knocked off Aronian's aspiration of winning this tournament in the 11th round with an impressive victory, today he almost knocked of Carlsen's dream to play Anand for the World Championship. Amazinly, Carlsen found himself in time trouble where he had to play some 8 moves in 10 seconds. He really needed good reflexes at that time to just play the moves. He managed that but found himself in losing position and had to resign, leaving his fate up in the air.

However, who knew that the very person who actually halted Carlsen's otherwise smooth campaign will help him to overcome all his problems. If you flip a coin in the morning to know whether a genius or an erratic Ivanchuk will be playing that day, you won't be worse than any pundit's predictions. Ivanchuk beat the #1 player in the 12th round and he beat the #2 player in the last and 14th round. It looked like Ivanchuk will get into time trouble once again and blunder his game any time although he had an edge right from the beginning of the game, but to everybody's surprise, he kept his cool even when he was short on time and made the precise moves and did not let go the pressure on Kramnik. Ultimately, he played like a master with full control and slowly overpowered the world # 2 to clinch another impressive win.

Finally, both Kramnik and Carlsen finished at identical score and the tiebreaker rules came into play. Although Magnus lost two games compare to one by Kramnik, but that also means, Magnus won more games than Kramnik to tie the score. However, the tie-breaker counts the # of wins and not the losses. So the 22 year old Magnus Carlsen wins the tournament and qualifies to challenge Anand for the next world championship.

The tournament has been one of the most exciting chess tournament in my memory. I do remember that when Anand became world champion by winning the tournament, it became exciting in the end as Kramnik was at the striking distance but lost out to Anand in the end. Kramnik once again lose out in a close encounter in this tournament. I think at that time when Kramnik lost his title, he said that he had just loaned out the world championship to Anand for some time and he'll get it back from him. Well, his wait has been further extended by at least two years for now.

It is significant to note that Carlsen played against 7 players in this tournament and all the seven players were from the Soviet block. Carlsen-Anand championship will be historic as this will be for the first time that the world chess championship would be contested without a player from the communist block countries.

[ajay]

Here are the comments from Kramnik about loaning the title to Anand after losing the world championship tournament to Anand in 2007.

Asked about his reaction to losing his title after seven years, Kramnik commented: “OK, on paper Anand may be world champion. But from my point of view, there is a difference in significance between a title won in a match, and in a tournament. For me, the forthcoming match with Anand is more important. If I lose that, I will accept completely the fact that I have lost the title, but right now, I have no such feelings. At present, I take the view that I have just lent Anand the title temporarily”.

[kujo]

Interesting ajay, vaguely remember the "on loan" comment from Kramnik about the World Championship crown. Thanks for your updates from 12th round of candidate tournament and after.

Here is the link to that idiot Carlsen withdrawing from Candidates tournament in 2011
http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4006789



I say, let the name calling begin immediately since we now know who the challenger to Anand is gonna' be....
And even more so, since Nielsen switched to Carlsen, it will be interesting if they stick to their previous quote:
http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4008817

"Peter is therefore not going to work with us in preparation, if Magnus qualifies as World Championship challenger."

[kujo]

Champion Viswanathan Anand Vs Challenger Magnus Carlsen
World Championship Match scheduled for 6-Nov to 26-Nov-2013
Venue: Likely to be Chennai, India (not yet confirmed)
Championship format: Best of 12 head to head matches with a tie breaker if needed

Current ELO ratings:
Rank Name Country Rating B-Year
1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2872 1990
6 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2783 1969

Carlsen is 21 years younger and has 89 ELO rating points higher than Anand as of now. The challenger tends to collect points like nobody's business and tends to squeeze water out of rock by grinding out 80+ move games regularly. i.e) gain points out of drawish games.

He is a formidable opponent and destined to be a World Champion someday. How soon can he dethrone Anand is the question? Will it be 2013?

What is the significance of the 89 point ELO difference you ask? Well, it translates to .62 Vs .38 expected score difference. i.e) If the ratings hold true, in a 12 match head to head, Carlsen will likely win it in 10 matches. Or a 7.5 to 4.5 score difference!!


cheers
kujo

http://www.fide.com/index.php?option=co ... decalendar
http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

[kujo]

Peter Heine Nielsen, who was a crucial cog among the seconds for Anand, left recently to work with Carlsen. Here are Anand's comments about Peter's work:

Generally Heine’s job is to keep track of everyone else (all the other seconds)

Who is the computer person there?
Well, all of us are. Peter, I guess, does a bit more than the others. His screen just looks like a dashboard or a pilot’s cockpit. But we are all heavily computer dependent.

Here are Anand's comments on Magnus in the same interview:

With Magnus you can test almost any position, because he can play almost any position, and play it reasonably well. In that sense his practical skills are very helpful.

I think if he qualifies for the next final he should come and train me for that as well.
You know it is possible that he will qualify, and then…?
Well, we are in uncharted territory here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But I thought that farewell was really cute.

Uncharted territory, here we come.....

http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4006346

[suresh]

Cool! The current vs the future.

[prasen9]

Cool! The current vs the future.

Suresh, I hope you get to post the same after the match.