Indeed, if Carlsen goes onto win this it's probably going to be a match winning blow from a psychological standpoint. It was painful to see Anand shaking his head on the move after when he realised what he missed.

Keano wrote on 11/14/14 at 18:09:20:


The guy had lost his title with that game ... I could understand him being snappy

LostTactic wrote on 11/14/14 at 16:04:45:


It was a great question that by Anastasia, right to the heart of the matter. Anands reaction was poor.

Now stick to the topic, this is 2014!!!

That's more or less what I remembered, i.e., she didn't just ask "were you calculating?" but qualified it with "til the end." I guess we will have to agree to disagree about what constitutes a stupid question then. It is possible that Anand thought the question was simply about calculating variations as opposed to looking at the ceiling doing nothing (that would be a stupid question) so maybe that's why he got annoyed, or he was just annoyed by the other questions, which again, there were quite bad. Anyway, what would good questions be, if Karlovich does such a bad job? Should it all be about alternative variations? Even there, Anand likes dodging questions, so as not to divulge anything from his preparation. For me it's quite painful to watch these press conferences. I know that it is not mandatory to follow them but can't they at least try to say a few words about the game or preparation without looking like they are tortured? They are both more communicative in interviews in other tournaments somehow, it seems to me (for example in London they gladly show their games in more detail). Anyway, I don't think anyone could really make them talk about anything openly. Probably Seth_Xoma is right.

gwnn wrote on 11/14/14 at 15:08:39:


Just found the exact question and answer from this chessvibe article during the 2013 match: http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=carlsen-close-to-world-title-after-anand-blunders-i...

Anastasiya Karlovich: "Did you try really to calculate all these complications, all these variations till the end somehow, or was it possible?” Anand replied: “No, I was thinking what to eat tonight.”

In the context of that particular press conference itself it seemed to me to be a "stupid" question. Anand obviously thought so as well given his reaction. If you check the comments section of the youtube video for that press conference there is a general consensus that the questions by her and the journalists towards Anand in particular, were; pretty dumb and in a few cases very rude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx74Q0I0aBc. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste, some people might like her interviewing style, I personally cringe when she asks some of the questions she does.

I also don't think it's comparable to say it's ok for her to do it because there's journalists asking even worse questions because a lot of these journalists won't be chess players so you need to tolerate some "stupid" questions from them. The professional interviewer or mediator should be conducting themselves with a certain level of professionalism and I think she hasn't on some occasions. 

I would probably go with Dirk Jan Geuzendam for my top pick to be the interviewer at these showcase events.

Regarding Carlsen I think that's just the way he is at press conferences, he's always been like that as far as I can remember. It's quite clear from his body language that he doesn't enjoy attending them. Tbh I don't blame him when it's Karlovich asking the questions   .

The questions are awful but any good questions will be answered with, "Maybe I can answer this after the match."

They could easily do without the press conferences altogether.

Last year she actually asked something like "were you trying to calculate all the way to mate in that time" with a mixture of curiosity and admiration, and he snapped back at her quite rudely. The other time he snapped was when a Norwegian reporter asked him 2-3 times "what it means that you will do your best." - that one seemed like quite a stupid question and was treated as such by Anand.

Who would you have as a professional interviewer? Many chess interviewers in the hall ask much worse things than Karlovich, at least she is trying to make non-committal jokes as a starting point, I mean, Carlsen could have gone into a bit of detail on what he thought of his defences to 1. d4 without divulging his opening in game 8 or anything useful to Anand, don't you agree? Instead, he chose to say "um maybe" and "well yes, the opening was ok. better than yesterday."