Psychologytest:

Can you recognize a pattern, if yes, how much points will carlsen achieve in Nanjing?

+ + = + + =

gewgaw wrote on 10/03/09 at 09:04:19:


I'm not an expert on ChessMetrics ratings, but Sonas already explained this on the "Home" page:

"Question #2: How can a player have a peak rating higher than their best performance rating?  Isn't that impossible?   
Answer: No, it's not impossible. It would indeed be impossible with traditional performance ratings, but not with Chessmetrics performance ratings. A Chessmetrics performance rating indicates the overall rating we would assign to the player if we only knew about that one event, and nothing else. Because an individual event typically covers only a few games, the performance rating calculations for single events are fairly conservative; we don't want to award extremely high ratings based upon just a few games. 
[...]
Hopefully it makes sense that a high percentage score across many games would have a greater impact on your rating than if it were across just a few games. It's more evidence that you really are that strong. 
[...] 
Thus it is quite possible to have an overall peak rating that is larger than any of your individual performances, simply because several events, viewed as a whole, constitute more overall evidence that you really are that strong, compared to the evidence from just one event."

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 10/03/09 at 16:43:02:


Well 11/11 against the likes of Mednis & Addison is great, but any top Soviet would have scored heavily there.

Stigma, 

Thanks for the links! Chessmetrics is really useful and cool, but I hope it doesn't replace thought in determining the greatest results and players of all time.

Before anyone goes proclaiming this as the greatest performance of all time, let's wait til the tnmt's over.

Topalov started 6.5/7 in San Luis, 2005 only to draw all his games in the second half of the tournament.  For me, that ranks as the greatest tournament performance this century.

Bobby Fischer's win in the US Championship, 1963, Botvinnik in 1948 victory, Keres in AVRO, Karpov in Linares, and Kasparov (take your pick) are all great victories.  Fischer's perfect score is unfathomable for a major national championship.  You can't rate perfection.  His games were stellar.  Botvinnik's 70% score in a world championship is also amazing. 

I think it was Twain who said that fiction is limited by the possible. Fact has no such constraints. It is imaginable that Carlsen will continue his amazing run, but let's hold off until he has done it. 

[quote author=gewgaw]

I assume they all fear garri´s power (of the dark side  ;)), this doubles Magnus´ strength[/quote]

Yes that's probably part of it - he just plays something they can somehow associate with Garri and suddenly his opponents feel like they're playing the chess variant "Death Square" :))

Anyhoo, sponsorwise Carlsen would most likely be the best choice for Number One and at the moment we can follow that fight on a daily basis: [url]http://chess.liverating.org/[/url] :)


Though if he does take over, then the Anand-Topalov match would lose some of it's appeal, I guess...

Stigma wrote on 10/02/09 at 17:51:26:

An impressive result indeed, but the fact that Kotov only beat Szabo and drew the others is a small spoiler.

rdecredico wrote on 10/02/09 at 14:11:16:


I remember that - Sofia wasnt it? 14 years old and rated less than 2300 she won the tournament with a 2900 performance.