26
Carlsen is being criticized for his preparation with white, particularly e4. He knows that Caruana is going to play the Petrof yet nevertheless Caruana equalizes effortlessly. Carlsen appears to have no new ideas in this opening. Since there is no more important competition he could be saving novelties for it tells us he has no novelties. No novelties = poor ...
26
Carlsen crushed it, made almost no mistakes whatsoever in rapid. It is as if he was playing at classical time controls.
Chess is about not making mistakes. If your opponent doesn't make mistakes then you're only going to get a draw even if you play like an engine.
He did play good moves as well. Example on move 37 the position is a draw but he gave himself ...
23
Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was?
Not quite. As others have pointed out, Carlsen's decision was based on factors outside that one game. With a stronger position and a large time advantage, Carlsen most likely could have won game 12, but Caruana had just tied Carlsen in 11 consecutive games, several of which ...
20
The Candidates will be held in Berlin, Germany, on 10-28 March 2018 (source).
According to FIDE's Rules & Regulations for the Candidates Tournament of the FIDE World Championship cycle 2016-2018, the following will qualify, in order of priority:
1. The loser of the previous World Championship Match -- Sergey Karjakin.
2. The 2 finalists of the FIDE ...
20
Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's
decision was?
No. Consensus on Carlsen's play and decision has already been reached, I would suggest.
Psychologically Carlsen made it clear in the post match interview that his goal before this game was a draw to reach the rapid playoff where he thought (correctly) that he was strong ...
19
One of the Russians (Filatov?, maybe even Karjakin himself?) brown-nosed to the media that every match is 50-50 odds on the face of it...
But more seriously, Carlsen's rating has consistently been 2850 plus/minus a small amount (20) for some time now, while Karjakin has been more volatile, currently 2775 (near his career best 2788 of July 2011). So I think ...
17
Magnus Carlsen drops out of World Championship cycle (contemporaneous chessbase.com article)
Largely he didn't like the format (knockout matches rather than round-robin tournament).
Carlsen wrote a letter to FIDE explaining why he skipped the Candidates Matches, quoted in part below:
After careful consideration I’ve reached the conclusion that the
...
17
What was the role, the duties, etc. of the second (e.g. GM Ray Keene
was Korchnoi’s second in the 1978 World Championship match vs. Karpov)
What it most definitely was NOT was writing a book of the match ready to rush into print the moment the match finished as Keene did.
The way it was supposed to work was that after the time control was reached at move 40 ...
16
Taking a look at the comments in your link, I came across a post quoting GM Edmar Mednis:
A move which was invariably given two exclamation marks - 14.Nb1!!
after the game. May I respectfully suggest that if Spassky had
proceeded to lose this game it would have read 14.Nb1?? If we look at
the nature of the position, it should be apparent that ...
15
There have been some shorter ones, for instance
Kasparov-Kramnik (2000), game 7, draw in 11 moves.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252046
Kasparov-Anand (1995), game 18, draw in 12 moves.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241980
Karpov-Kasparov (1984), game 29, draw in 13 moves.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=...
15
my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.
Whenever two players play a game without making any errors the result is a draw. Most games have lots of errors and it is usually the player who makes the last error who loses.
As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly
good moves
Not true. Carlsen made many ...
14
From a purely positional point of view, 18...Nxb6 would have been a
terrible mistake, as it would have allowed white to then forcefully trade the light squared bishops with the immediate Bg4
move, leaving exposed all the light square weaknesses that black has
created with the d6-e5-f4 setup.
These weaknesses (created holes) would then have been permanently ...
14
The WCC was the "World Chess Council".
It was formed in 1998 by Kasparov after the collapse of the PCA (Professional Chess Association) in 1995. It was Kasparov's fourth attempt at an organization separate from FIDE.
It organized the candidates match between Kramnik and Shirov in 1998, which Shirov surprisingly won (5.5-3.5), and he was slated to play ...
13
Draw by mutual agreement is not allowed before move 30. But a draw by threefold repetition can be claimed at any point if it occurs.
13
Carlsen is criticized because he's in a defense position (he's defending his title, and doesn't need to win all games), and people want to see crazy games with new things, as simple as that.
While I must admit that this kind of games are pretty boring, we cannot "hate" on him for having poor preparation. He's not there to entertain people.
12
Nimzovitch.
NimzoIndian Defense: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4
Nimzovitch Defense: 1.e4 Nc6
Nimzovitch Attack: 1.Nf3 d5 2.b3 (1.b3 is the Nimzo-Larsen Attack)
Nimzovitch Variations:
Sicilian Defense: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6
Queens Indian Defense: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6
Falkbeer Counter-Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.de5 c6
Falkbeer Counter-Gambit: 1.e4 ...
12
Game 1 of the tiebreak: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937923
37 Rc7 is a brilliant endgame move under time control, that induces the opponent to make the mistake 37...Kxe4. There were few other options for Carlsen, v.i.z., 37. Kh3 or 37. Rb4. You can see the evaluation jumps couple of points from +0.3 to +2.1 even though materially Caruana ...
11
One of Anand's strengths relative to Carlsen is better opening knowledge, and Anand also had the better analysis team. (UPDATE: According to Carlsen in a recent interview, his team of seconds during the Chennai match consisted of Hammer, Fressinet and Eljanov.) To repeat openings was a natural match strategy for him, trying to turn the match into an opening ...
11
There is no real definite answer for this question. Many people have floated different theories, most of which borrow bits and pieces from each other. It is quite possible that his mental struggles just got the best of him or that he lost interest after attaining the summit of the game. Psychologically, it must have been hard to cope when you get the ...
11
At the very least we know that in 1992 a man that looked and sounded like an aged version of Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky in a match, and won it. Assuming that this old man was actually not Fischer, we must think of plausible alternatives for who it possibly could've been. What old man besides Bobby Fischer will look like Bobby Fischer and be able to ...
11
By far, the biggest blunder in all world championship is absolutely 32.Bb4?? played by Chigorin in the 1892 match. He threw away the win and the match, landed himself to mate in 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1892
A piece up, Chigorin should have won after 32. Rxb7 (32...Rxd5? 33. Nf4 forks the black rooks).[1] Instead the game ...
11
After 18 ... Qe8 the bishop on b6 is attacking thin air and isn't very annoying.
After 18 ... Nxb6 19. Nxb6 the knight on b6 is very annoying indeed. The a8 rook is forced to a7 and black's pieces are becoming uncoordinated.
After 18 ... Nxb6 19. axb6 Rxa1 20. Qxa1 black is in trouble. White's b6 pawn is looking dangerous, black's b7 pawn is going to come ...
11
If it was only about the 1975 match, It could have been a mistake by the video editor. As far as many sources from the web, there were only 3.
Not counting the draws, first to win 10 games wins the Championship.
If the result is 9-9, then the title goes to Fischer but the prize money is split equally.
There will be an unlimited number of games.
The first ...
10
First, note that the final ratings depend entirely on the score of the match, not on the particular games. For example, if they each win a game, their ratings will change by the same amount as if they draw both games. This may seem like a coincidence but it's just a consequence of the way that FIDE ratings work.
Here is the entire table of possible results. ...
10
Chess isn't popular because all major tournaments make it lack emotion. For some reason, all major tournaments are those of classic chess, that is, with high quality games that last 5 hours or more. The outcome of these high quality games at the highest play level is most typically a draw. This is totally broken and does not have a chance to make it to ...
10
It will not show how good or bad Carlsen's decision was - humans play
and assess differently from computers; there are positions that are extremely
easy for computers, but terribly difficult for humans and vice versa.
So a computer evaluation of ~+1 might not give any chance for a human win
and in many cases a position with equal computer evaluation is an ...
10
Several reasons I can think of:
black is obviously playing on the kingside and Qe8 is a useful move aiming to transfer the queen to f7, g6 or perhaps h5 later. Also it might be useful to push e4 later.
the bishop on b6 is not annoying. At the moment it attacks the black queen but that's about it. To some extent it is also blocking other white pieces. Also ...
9
It does take awhile for FIDE to update their ratings, which is monthly (see article) compared to the unofficial Live ratings site at Live Ratings. But it is interesting to note that Carlsen is due for a 2 point bump according to the Live rating site.
9
The longest ever World Championship game was played between Korchnoi and Karpov; it lasted for 124 moves.
[FEN ""]
[Event "WCC 1978 Game 5"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Viktor Korchnoi"]
[Black "Anatoly Karpov"]
[ECO "E42"]
1. c4 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5. Nge2 d5 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Nxc3 cxd4 8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4 Nc6 10. Be3 O-O 11. O-O b6 12. Qd3 Bb7 ...
9
There's live commentary from two GMs on Chess24's youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media
They have video, but only of the commentators (not the players), together with an analysis board
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