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He deserves it. He played excellently well, even when things went awry (say in the last game against Grishuk). 

If ( ) there is a match with Kramnik I hold him the definite favourite and think he would deserve to be the "real" world champion. Even when his results were overshadowed by others he always was in the top 3.

I am impressed by Anand's play here, because he not only displayed his attacking power, but also displayed his endgame skill has improved. He had to play several worse endgames to the end, and did so without committing errors.
Curiously there is one area where there is room for improvement. His opening preparation was not super..
Apparantly he had no good backup variation against the Petroff. This is something he must prepare playing a match against Kramnik. Experience teaches us that a wide preparation of openings is necessary in match play. The standard for preparation was probably set by Fischer, in his first match against Spassky. Fischer used 5 or 6 different openings against Spassky, just playing black.
But Anand has been taught the meaning of preparation by a true master. When Anand finally succeeded to defeat Kasparov in the sicilian, he suddenly faced Kasparov's surprise backup: the sicilian Dragon!. 
While Kasparov as white won a Spanish game directly from the opening.

This tournament has produced some good games, but I think it shows the problems with tournaments in selecting a champion.  We may end up with 3 of the 8 players having a positive score, and with all six games between the top three drawn.  Some of these were entertaining draws, but it doesn't change the fact that we are rewarding the player who is best able to beat up on the tail-enders, as capable as they may be.

Despite the flaws, I think an Anand-Kramnik match is good for chess.  I know that Kramnik is somewhat polarizing and some feel that he is getting too many bites at the apple, but I don't see how this match can disappoint based on their games in Mexico, and either way, the winner will be deserving of the title of World Champion.

Of course, one more round remains; maybe they will even play some chess!

Yeah, Antillian.

The boring game between Gelfand and Kramnik was what I feared might happen.  I hoped for a good fighting game, but Kramnik quickly neutralised White's initiative in another Semi-Slav.  This time, the variation wasn't even particularly sharp.  Oh well.

This anti-climactic game seems to be indicative of the entire tournament.  The quality of the games has been generally very good, but just when sporting results are getting interesting, the players back away.  In order for this tournament to be considered one of the best ever, there needed to be something special happen.  2005 had Topalov dominate from the start.  That was Topalov's Great Tournament.  Everything since then has been a bit down hill for Topalov.  

This tournament had a different dynamic.  The two best players in the world, Anand and Kramnik, were close to making this a tremendous tournament.  Unfortunately Kramnik stumbled and lost ignominiously to Morozevich one round before the two were supposed to meet and decide the fate of the tournament.  Now, in the battle for second place, Gelfand and Kramnik agree to a quick draw rather than try to win against each other.  

Boris Gelfand will certainly view this tournament as perhaps the greatest of his career so far.  He has shown that for at least one tournament he can keep up with the best in the world.  He fully deserves tremendous credit for his result.  Before the tournament, I picked Aronian as the dark-horse for the event.  I was sucked into the excitement of his thrilling victories in the knock-out stages.  Gelfand proved he was the real deal in Mexico City, but he hasn't proven capable of beating the best players in the world.

The tournament is winding down, and I hope people will not see Anand's victory as "just" a solid score.  He was a fairly close second in the final standings at San Luis, and a clear, clear first here.  His result is just as impressive as Topalov's but not as unexpected.

I still give Gelfand a shot in this tournament - very easy after a great tournament like Anand has had so far to let something slip in the final rounds.

Catalan! For quite some time now, Kramnik is making it look like a forced win fir white! I’m sure, quite a few will ape Kramnik and play Catalan around the globe. I have to confess, I’m tempted to try his Qc1 variation. He seems to be playing lot of variations and his Catalan repertoire seems to be infinite. I’ll be surprised if we don’t get bombarded with Winning with, Chess Explained Starting out and Revealed books within an year.

Some notes:

• I'm not as excited by this tournament as San Luis 2005, but there are some real gems in this tournament! I would like to see a close examination of Kramnik's game yesterday for instance.
• In some sense it seems that Anand is just more consistant than the others. No losses and taking most of the chances he's been given. Missed to win against Morozevich where he looked good. Can't remember that he's been close to losing, apart from the pawn down ending vs Kramnik. Still, the performance doesn't seem that spectacular compared to Topalov's two years ago. Also: His whites vs Petroff were particulary unspectacular.
• Openings that seem to doing well: Catalan (white), semi-slav (black), Petroff (black)
• Maybe the English is the perfect opening for Morozevich. He can play non-theoretical lines and still get playable positions. He played the Bb5 Sicilian when rising to the top nearly 10 years ago, but the English is more versatile.
• I'm surprised by the amount of people who didn't think much of Gelfand before this tournament. I'm not just talking about people at this forum. He has been a favourite of mine since the fantastic Rb1 Grünfeld game against Shirov in 1998. His style is not that far from Kramnik's I think. Excellent positional player who can calculate very deep when needed.
• Why are people so sure of results in advance? All players are above 2700. I would assume that all results are possible, even if some are more likely. Yes, Kramnik and Anand probably are better players than the others but the difference isn't that big.
• No wins for Svidler yet. Last time he finished shared second with Anand. Even if you finish in the bottom of the field, it's nice to have at least one win to show.