Willempie wrote on 10/22/08 at 07:37:14:



you're the one eh?

CheckMate wrote on 10/22/08 at 15:28:32:

To some extent this was true for Taimanov, but that might have a lot to do with the reception back in the USSR. Politburo was not very amused. Larsen continued with some fine achievements in the 70's.

trw wrote on 10/22/08 at 01:07:55:


Double nonsense. Only a minority predicted a boring match and this minority was wrong. As a punishment you must play through all the Alekhine-Capablanca, Buenos Aires 1927 games in one session. If that is not enough yet you must play through all the Karpov-Kasparov draws of Moscow 1984. Then you may come back.

It was Willempie.

Willempie wrote on 10/14/08 at 11:16:53:


Who said it would be a boring match?? It's not a boring match and it's not computer preps that decides it.

trw, 

About 96% of us predicted a close match.  I still wonder how we got it so wrong.  It's not like Kramnik is a fish or Anand is some wonderkind that has suddenly appeared on the scene. (I know, there's still plenty of time for a comeback, but....


Just as with Fischer's spectacular win in 1972 (and his 6-0 sweeps in the Candidates rounds), Anand seems to have sucked the will out of his opponent with the second win.

Btw, does anyone know if Anand clinches the match early, do they still have to play all twelve games?

RE: "Anyone have any idea what Anand's performance rating is? "

While this might not make sense, it seems to me that Kramnik's performance rating (of 2593) is the more important statistic. By that I mean, I don't think its so much that Anand has played 2900+ chess so much as Kramnik as under-performed at "only" 2600 strength this week. 

I think any top 10 player could have won after the mistakes Kramnik has made.  As Smyslov_Fan mentioned earlier, Speelman saw ...Ne3!.  And while I am not trying to say Speelman isn't a fantastic player (he would crush me in a match) I'm saying you don't need to be 2900+ to find these moves.  
The big question, for me, isn't how Anand found these moves, its why isn't Kramnik finding them lately?  So, I think Anand has be playing his regular (amazing, 2800) chess while Kramnik is clearly off-form.

As to why he missing moves and getting into time trouble...I don't know. Perhaps he didn't prepare enough physically for the match. Perhaps he somehow lost confidence in his game and is falling apart. I really don't know...any thoughts?

I don't remember Kramnik getting into this much time trouble in the past.
It seems like he is lacking confidence and taking too much time.   

I remember Topalov moved rather quickly in their match, especially near the end, with the idea of putting pressure on Kramnik; but it didn't impress.  But now Kramnik seems to be facing time trouble very frequently.

Does anyone know if he's addressed the zeitnot in the press conferences?