It's a bit of a strange weakness to have at his level, essentially just a lot of stuff that must be explicitly memorized. Maybe that's just the problem; Carlsen is much better in positions where he can rely on his intuition, which relies on a very different kind of memory. Like strategic endgames, for example.

Maybe an intensive month with Dvoretsky would be a good cure!

More than ten years ago, when Peter Heine Nielsen first had a training session with Carlsen, he identified endgames (both strategic and technical I believe) as the youngster's biggest weakness. According to Carlsen's coach Agdestein, commenting at the recent Norway Chess 2013, he then told Magnus to read through Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings, and "after that Magnus never had any problems in endings". Now we see that's not quite true... these concrete, technical endgames must be repeated now and then, else they will fade from memory over time.

Btw. at the very top level, where players are trying to find any small edge over their rivals, do people need to know more technical positions than you find in Dvoretsky's and Müller/Lamprecht's books? Dvoretsky seems to think his Endgame Manual should be enough up to top GM level.

Well, regarding the value of the teams it may be so or not. I suppose there may be ways for the player with the weaker team to stir the match to a direction that the actual player is more important.

In analogy, we all follow similar strategies, e.g. may play variations that diminish the value of the opening so that we can have the chance to play chess later on, etc.

As for Anand, I have said my opinion in the past and imo he has good chances to retain the WCh. And what about his loss?: maybe he was playing mind games! (as ErictheRed possibly implies above) (once when I was younger, I had deliberately changed openings and then deliberately lost in a serious friendly game to disorientate a future opponent - and it worked when we played an official otb game!).

Good God, all the black pieces are crushed against the back rank. It looks like a steam roller ran over Anand.

Actually I don't think even Anand believes in the home-team advantage. On the contrary, I remember some remarks in which he said the pressure of playing a FIDE championship event in India was horrific. I think that's one reason he chose to play in Sofia; let Topalov experience that pressure. The fact that he is playing in India suggests to me that he is, consciously or unconsiously, in a valedictory mood, and wishes to give something back to Chennai now, while he can.

Wow. That doesn't bode well for the home team in November.

With his win against Carlsen, Caruana moved to #3 on the rating list.  He's about one win away from making it past 2800.

Anand not losing to Gelfand I still don't understand. The match was there for the taking and Anand has been playing stale chess for the last few years. Having said all that, I can see how he might wake up for the Carlsen match. By the way the one thing I disagree about Kasparov is all this ageism stuff - Kasparov himself retired too early probably because of this attitude - "chess is a young mans game" etc. The oldies are not short of a few tricks either.

tony37 wrote on 06/13/13 at 17:02:28:


I have little doubt that at this moment in time Carlsen is a better player than Anand, especially considering his youth and energy.  But a match is much different than a tournament, and Anand will have his entire team preparing for only one player.  It will be a different sort of challenge for Carlsen than he's used to; we'll see how he handles it.

I hope that he wins and that we can move on to the next era in chess, led by the younger generation.