I would love to see a match between Anand-Carlsen before his age takes its inevitable toll on Anand. I think I am not alone in this wish.
Another match I would like to see is between Carlsen and Karjakin and or Radjabov as they are the youngest in the top 10. A match of at least 8 games though and none of this silly 4 game stuff.
Totally disagree. Just because you decide not to attend your Senior Prom it doesn't mean the Prom will not be held and a King and Queen will not be elected. It just means you have decided not to partipate on the event...and therefore you will not dance and will not be crowned at the end of the night.
Carlsen rescinded his opportunity to be at the WCC through the candidates tournament....his choice and is respected. But the fact that he opted not to participate in the WCC when he is not the current WCC, doesn't mean in any way or form that this is not a WCC championship. I hope in the future Carlsen matures a little bit and learns how to fight his own battles as opposed to being a puppet for his current trainer, Kasparov.
Carlsen may not be the World Champion but he is the Nos.1 Rated player. (Is he currently ?)
Yes, after the Kings tournament he passed Anand.
If there's one thing that's repeated more than anything concerning Carlsen it is that it was immature of him to protest about the cycle changes by refusing to participate, and that he did this because he is Kasparov's puppet or a coward or both. It's been quite a while since Kasparov had his training sessions with Carlsen, by the way.
I think it was nice to see at least a couple of players do something when FIDE suddenly changed the rules after the qualification already had started. OK, Carlsen missed out on the possibility to become the youngest World Champion ever and the title match went to Gelfand but with that qualification format it all isn't particularly serious anyway.
Carlsen has shown he is a great tournament player . He has not shown (yet) that he is a great match player. To be world champion you must be a great match player too. Geller was a great tournament player but failed in matches. Geller had a plus record against Spassky in tournaments but in 2 candidates matches against Spassky failed to win even one game . Its possible Carlsen may turn out to be another Geller ? Until he plays serious matches against some of his elite peers we won't know.
+1 feel the manlove Reb...
Carlsen has shown he is a great tournament player . He has not shown (yet) that he is a great match player. To be world champion you must be a great match player too. Geller was a great tournament player but failed in matches. Geller had a plus record against Spassky in tournaments but in 2 candidates matches against Spassky failed to win even one game . Its possible Carlsen may turn out to be another Geller ? Until he plays serious matches against some of his elite peers we won't know.
+1 feel the manlove Reb...
Geller was no Carlsen though, I doubt that he ever won a tournament of the level Carlsen has won a dozen the last years. Certainly not after similar performances. At Chessmetrics the by far best performance in Geller's career was his third place (after playoff) in Curacao 1962. Second best was a match result, the win against Smyslov in 1965.
I wonder if there are any players of Carlsen's level that are just great tournament players and can't play matches. Maybe one could say that Larsen was a tournament player, but he was just never as good as Spassky and Fischer so it was just natural that he lost his matches against them. He was never close to Carlsen's level but at least managed to win matches against Tal and Portisch.
Anand is now seen as a strong match player but for more than 15 years it was the opposite, and before the match against Kramnik the latter was the clear favorite since he was considered a great match player while Anand was said to be a typical tournament player. The question is what makes a great match player. In Kramnik's case it was enough with one very good match and apart from that the by far worst match total of any World Champion. Topalov is seen as a weak match player but he wasn't far from beating Kramnik and Anand.
Carlsen's only match (apart from rapid matches like those he has won against Leko and Anand) was played when he was 16. Then he had 5-5 after classical and rapid against recent Linares winner Aronian but lost in blitz. But then Aronian was ranked first and Carlsen 16th in the Candidates. To me he is just a great player, and I wonder if matches or tournaments really matter all that much.
Carlsen has shown he is a great tournament player . He has not shown (yet) that he is a great match player. To be world champion you must be a great match player too. Geller was a great tournament player but failed in matches. Geller had a plus record against Spassky in tournaments but in 2 candidates matches against Spassky failed to win even one game . Its possible Carlsen may turn out to be another Geller ? Until he plays serious matches against some of his elite peers we won't know.
+1 feel the manlove Reb...
Geller was no Carlsen though, I doubt that he ever won a tournament of the level Carlsen has won a dozen the last years. Certainly not after similar performances. At Chessmetrics the by far best performance in Geller's career was his third place (after playoff) in Curacao 1962. Second best was a match result, the win against Smyslov in 1965.
I wonder if there are any players of Carlsen's level that are just great tournament players and can't play matches. Maybe one could say that Larsen was a tournament player, but he was just never as good as Spassky and Fischer so it was just natural that he lost his matches against them. He was never close to Carlsen's level but at least managed to win matches against Tal and Portisch.
Anand is now seen as a strong match player but for more than 15 years it was the opposite, and before the match against Kramnik the latter was the clear favorite since he was considered a great match player while Anand was said to be a typical tournament player. The question is what makes a great match player. In Kramnik's case it was enough with one very good match and apart from that the by far worst match total of any World Champion. Topalov is seen as a weak match player but he wasn't far from beating Kramnik and Anand.
Carlsen's only match (apart from rapid matches like those he has won against Leko and Anand) was played when he was 16. Then he had 5-5 after classical and rapid against recent Linares winner Aronian but lost in blitz. But then Aronian was ranked first and Carlsen 16th in the Candidates. To me he is just a great player, and I wonder if matches or tournaments really matter all that much.
At the top level their style of play often is what makes a great player better or worse in match/tournament play. Players like Petrosian and Kramnik are good match players because they rarely lose and they dont take many risks. In tournament play its usually necessary to play with more risk if you want to win the tournament. In a match if you win a couple of games and dont lose any you will win the match, in a tournament winning 2 games and drawing the rest will rarely be good enough to win the tourney. Carlsen takes more risks, as does Topalov , in their chess. Kramnik takes very little risk in his games whether he is playing a tournament or a match. Petrosian was a great match player because he rarely lost a game but in tournaments he didnt finish first very often because he drew too many games because of his riskless play, which is good for matches and bad for tournaments. Larsen was famous for his risk taking, and his "inferior openings" . This made him a great tournament player but not such a great match player.
Yes, that's the basic difference, even if I think Carlsen takes more risks against "weaker" players than against top opponents. Already in the match against Aronian four years ago he played very solidly before losing the blitz tiebreak. For Kramnik the problem is more to create chances to win games, as the Candidates showed, where he played 16 classical/rapid against Radjabov and Grischuk without winning. Hard to see Carlsen ever doing something similar. Gelfand has had the same problem as Kramnik (but to a much greater extent). Even if he has drawn many games against Anand recently he has had white in most of them and gone for very early draws. It will be interesting to see if he finally can get close to winning a game against Anand again. Somehow it would be fun if Gelfand won and there's another Kasim-style sensation in the next knockout and there's a Gelfand-Dreev title match or something like that.
Carlsen has shown he is a great tournament player . He has not shown (yet) that he is a great match player. To be world champion you must be a great match player too. Geller was a great tournament player but failed in matches. Geller had a plus record against Spassky in tournaments but in 2 candidates matches against Spassky failed to win even one game . Its possible Carlsen may turn out to be another Geller ? Until he plays serious matches against some of his elite peers we won't know.
+1 feel the manlove Reb...
Geller was no Carlsen though, I doubt that he ever won a tournament of the level Carlsen has won a dozen the last years. Certainly not after similar performances. At Chessmetrics the by far best performance in Geller's career was his third place (after playoff) in Curacao 1962. Second best was a match result, the win against Smyslov in 1965.
I wonder if there are any players of Carlsen's level that are just great tournament players and can't play matches. Maybe one could say that Larsen was a tournament player, but he was just never as good as Spassky and Fischer so it was just natural that he lost his matches against them. He was never close to Carlsen's level but at least managed to win matches against Tal and Portisch.
Anand is now seen as a strong match player but for more than 15 years it was the opposite, and before the match against Kramnik the latter was the clear favorite since he was considered a great match player while Anand was said to be a typical tournament player. The question is what makes a great match player. In Kramnik's case it was enough with one very good match and apart from that the by far worst match total of any World Champion. Topalov is seen as a weak match player but he wasn't far from beating Kramnik and Anand.
Carlsen's only match (apart from rapid matches like those he has won against Leko and Anand) was played when he was 16. Then he had 5-5 after classical and rapid against recent Linares winner Aronian but lost in blitz. But then Aronian was ranked first and Carlsen 16th in the Candidates. To me he is just a great player, and I wonder if matches or tournaments really matter all that much.
At the top level their style of play often is what makes a great player better or worse in match/tournament play. Players like Petrosian and Kramnik are good match players because they rarely lose and they dont take many risks. In tournament play its usually necessary to play with more risk if you want to win the tournament. In a match if you win a couple of games and dont lose any you will win the match, in a tournament winning 2 games and drawing the rest will rarely be good enough to win the tourney. Carlsen takes more risks, as does Topalov , in their chess. Kramnik takes very little risk in his games whether he is playing a tournament or a match. Petrosian was a great match player because he rarely lost a game but in tournaments he didnt finish first very often because he drew too many games because of his riskless play, which is good for matches and bad for tournaments. Larsen was famous for his risk taking, and his "inferior openings" . This made him a great tournament player but not such a great match player.
+1 a very nice perspectative on things Reb I never looked at it that way. Everyone of course thought Aronian was a good favorite but he loss in round 1 and he's very successful in tournaments as well but I've heard nothing about him being good in match play.
Gelfand showed what was already well known, that is that the best players rarely win knockouts (see Khalifman, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov). It's not a format to decide who one of the two candidates for best player in the world is.
I agree. I also didnt like the format used in this candidates but what can we do ?
Nothing else than wait for the next cycle with the same format :-) If Anand beats Gelfand as most people expect his World Championship CV starts to look quite good. Clear win in 2007, clear win in 2008, clear win in 2010 and then another win in 2012 would make it four World Championships in a row, and all of them could be won without tiebreak or draw odds. And if he wins in 2012 there's no reason to believe that it has to be his last win either. Could have been an even longer sequence if Anand hadn't declined the title match in 2000 and Candidates in 2002.