That's one reason I'd love to see it happen. Unless my memory fails me, I don't think any World Champion has regained the title other than by an almost immediate rematch. If Kramnik could achieve this maybe he'd put off the rumoured retirement plans.

Who will win the Candidates' Tournament?

Pale Horse, Pale Rider wrote on 02/28/14 at 08:51:51:



Agreed. And I see Svidler as the dark horse yet again.

Anything other than a Kramnik or Aronian win would be a huge shock imo, as big as when Gelfand qualified to challenge Anand (arguably). I personally would like to see Kramnik win as I think a Carlsen-Kramnik WCh match would be fascinating to watch. I have sensed from watching post-game analysis interviews between the two, that Kramnik is someone Carlsen really admires and looks up to, would add an interesting dimension to the match.

That said, I wouldn't be too disappointed in seing a Carlsen-Aronian match, #1 vs #2 has its appeal ofc. I think there may be some lingering fear of Aronian by Carlsen from their games during their youth, where Aronian inflicted some painful defeats on him. I'm not sure if I recall right, but there was some game that Carlsen lost vs Aronian in an endgame that Carlsen was very upset about. There use to be a great clip from a past encounter between them in their youth, in the clip Aronian beats Carlsen in tie break rapid and Carlsen says in an interview a day or so later that it's the first time he has never slept after losing a game. It use to be on the chessnoir youtube channel, I just tried finding it but it doesn't seem to be there anymore sadly.

My dark horse is Svidler, I think he has the skill to win it, but he will need to play at his maximum potential. I think qualifying for a WCh match and becoming WCh are the 2 things missing from his impressive chess resume.

Kramnik was playing phenomenal chess a year or so ago, even more recently, but has since had some bad losses and doesn't look to be in great form.  Obviously he could get it all back together (for a short time I thought he was playing better than anyone, possibly even Carlsen), but I don't know.  He's too up and down for me to predict a win.  

Actually, I have a hard time imagining anyone winning, so...maybe Kramnik will after all .  I wish that Caruana and Nakamura were competing; oh well.