2013 world championship

After losing two out of three of his last games in the interzonal, is the consensus still that Magnus would put up the most resistance against Anand in the upcoming world championship?

I don't know.

i think vishy will win.

Yes. Is it not enough evidence that Carlsen at such a young age (22) won the candidates tournament even with a poor performance in the last few rounds does not mean he is any worse. He is just more human than we thought he was.

In fact, Magnus acknowledged he did not play as well as he could have, so he knows it. I expect thorough preparation in the next half year, and a great match vs anand.

Perhaps Magnus will try the mainlines 

In other news, please focus on next month's super tournament in Norway, where the top 8 players in the world are playing, plus Wang Hao, and some other Norweigan GM.

Time will tell!

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4009448/indepth-interview-with-vladimir-kramnik-120413.aspx

Marina Makarycheva (MM): He [Anand] also wins quite few games ...

Vladimir Kramnik (VK): Well, one doesn't have to win many games in a match (smiles). It is enough to win one game and to draw the rest. It is clear that he is now match-oriented and not wasting energy on regular tournaments. Maybe he won't be in his top form. His match against me was prbably the pinnacle of his career. He was playing brillantly back then. Even if he gets back to his normal "good" form, he can still beat Carlsen, but only if he manages to solve his psychological problems. This is a must-do. He should relax and not be afraid of Magnus. One can face Carlsen and actually beat him. If Anand manages to prepare himself this way, then I think the chances will be equal. If not, then his chances will be very low. Psychology matters a lot in World Championship matches. This is probably the firs plot of the match. I would say that if he manges to hold the pressure of Magnus for at least 6 games (i.e. tie at 3-3), then Anand will become a favorite in my eyes.

MM: Magnus Carlsen doesn't have a puncher's opening repertoire. Will he be able to play Anand using such unpretentious openings?

VK: It's hard to say. In the opening Anand is clearly superior to Magnus. He is a very difficult match opponent, because he is extremely well-prepared. It is so hard to obtain a promising position against him even with white. During our match I had to take immense risks to somehow lure him out of his armor coat, but I didn't succed. On the other hand, Magnus has an edge in term of having a phenomenal memory. We have been talking about what Anand needs to work on, and now we are getting to Carlsen. Here he obviously has problems. He was making statements earlier before the Candidates about hiring new coaches and preparing in a different way, but in the end he didn’t show anything impressive in the opening at the Candidates. Hence, it was hard for him to play here, and everything didn’t go smoothly. In a match against Anand, if you are constantly under pressure in the opening, it is very hard to play when your position is always slightly worse. He should ponder this over. In half a year he won’t be able to catch up. Maybe he should try tot hink of something cunning, come up with a concept which would allow him to mitigate the effects of opening preparation? Anyway, I am sure that Anand will have an advantage in the opening. The only question is: to what extent?

P.S.: Sorry, I had to retype these two questions and answers for making it readable ... 
The change of typset results from using Word for retyping the text faster.

Piratch, make that a little less bold please.

Sorry, copy and paste doesn't work!  I'll try to fix it ...

You probably shouldn't be posting such large chunks of copyrighted text like that.

Also, Carlssen is not that young, at 22.  If this were the middle ages, he would be considered well into his productive adulthood, with only 10 to 20 years of his life left.

Those dragon attacks made life difficult.

That and the man-eating trolls...

It will be spectacular match definilty.I am sure we will see many novelties.In my opinion Anand is maybe the best defender in history of chess.We all know Carlsen need just little positional advantage to take him to win...This time Carlsen will need much more,so I am almost sure his preparations will be mostly on openings because in that segment Anand is curenlty superior.Anand could write history if he defend title 4th time.(Topalov,Kramnik,Gelfand) I bet on Carlsen.

Runsledale > Chessbase won't mind. If nothing else, it is getting good advertising for free. And as for Magnus being not-so-young... I know you are trolling so I won't go there :P

No, even copying the text into Word I had the same problem with the background. Maybe with a simple text-editor there would have been no problem at all. 

22 years is young! Kasparov was 22 when he became WC. Tal was 23 and Karpov 24, Lasker 26 and Fischer 29. So in history of "classical" World Champions Carlsen is (still) very young! (We no longer live in the middle age!)  

Magnus out-rates Anand by 89 points. That's huge.

Now look for the player who is rated 89 points beneath Anand. Name is Fransisco Vallejo Pons. Ranked #58 in the world. Few of us have ever even heard of him, I will bet.

Nobody would seriously expect FVP to overcome an 89 point handicap to beat Anand in a Match. Nor can we expect Anand to overcome an 89 point gap to beat Carlsen either. That chasm is just too big to jump. 

I think Carlsen's strategy should be clear to Anand....out of Book early, and grind the games out looking for mistakes in long games. The question is, how does Anand prepare for this? Can he? Carlsen will have the obvious advantage the longer the games go, due to his strong endgame and stamina. For Anand to counter this, he will need to improve his stamina and focus...but does he have the time to work on these areas? Anand IMHO also has a confidence problem...this is obvious, especially when he heaps too many praises on Carlsen...he starts to believe it himself...we might see "THE MIKE TYSON EFFECT" ...beaten before he even enters the ring.

Carlsen on the other hand lacks Match experience, takes many risks, and his weakness has to be in his opening prep. If Anand can steer him into some delicious "home cooked meals"...he just might be able to draw "first blood". If not, he will need to be prepared for long games. The psychological edge has to be with Carlsen...but his youth and inexperience, are traits that Anand should prepare to take advantage of.

...we will all be glued...

No! I think Kramnik is right here. Why simply because Carlsen didn't manage to win even in long games. That surely will reduce his confidence in being able to win the match. That's probably what Kramnik meant with psychology is important in a match.

Kramnik has almost equal match experience as Anand. Probably chances for Carlsen vs Kramnik would even been worse. Because Kramnik has almost the same strength as Carlsen. He probably was the player in the last few month who played the most impressive games (according to Judit Polgar and other GMs).

And as Kramnik mentioned it one win could be enough for either side. So less confidence on Carlsen's side and more confidence on Anand's side could easily lead to a win for Anand.

(Remember what Short said on his match with Kasparov. He was unsure what to play. He had little self-confidence and this lead to a lost match in the first half. in the last 10 games of the match when Short had nothing to lose he made a 5-5 score! He even won one game. - There would have been a big effect on the match if Short had managed to win one of the first games without any loss ... The whole match could have changed! However it didn't happen.)

Speculation on who should be favoured in this November match is uninformed until we get more information as to the contenders' training regimens.  Carlsen, a youthful European bachelor with "celebrity status," seems to have a busier "outside life" than Anand, who is a married family man with little discernable outside worries.

Also, Anand may have a substantial "home field advantage" in the match that no commentator has mentioned.  Has there been a WCC before that was held in the champion's home-town?

Of course there were WCCs held in towns of either the Champ or the Challenger. The last was Anand-Topalov in Sofia 2010!

In 1910 Lasker played the famous WCC 5 games in Vienna where Challenger Schlechter came from and 5 games in Berlin Lasker's home-town. And in the same year vs. Janowski also in Berlin!
Also Lasker played in Havanna the home-town of Challenger Capablanca!

Alekhine played in the Netherlands where Challenger Euwe came from.

The Moscow WCC's in the years 1951-69 I don't really know who of the Champs or Challengers was really Russian and came from Moscow. (It's clear Tal was from Riga, Latvia and Petrosian originally came from Armenia. About Botvinnik, Bronstein, Smyslov and Spassky I don't know that much.)

I really don't see this a an advantage because the pressure on Anand is nowhere bigger than in his home-town. 

Thank you for the information.  I did not know.  Both Botvinnik and Spassky are from St. Petersbourg/Leningrad but Spassky grew up in the area of the Ural Mountains to where he was evactuated during the German invasion.