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ReneDescartes wrote on 11/23/14 at 18:39:20:
Good point.



Quote:
Unfortunately the next couple decades will likely see more Match World Chess Championship (MWWC) matches that suffer from having a challenger who is not seen as having demonstrated he is the best challenger.

The problem is that the 40 years of Candidates' Matches during the 1950-1990 is financially unsustainable these days. Even a round-robin tournament will occasionally produce the "wrong" winner; meaning a winner other than the favorite. Indeed Kramnik nearly won the tournament that gave Carlsen Carlsen's first MWCC Challenger opportunity - because of a blunder by Aronian against Kramnik.

Hopefully it will eventually be financially practical to have two round-robin tournaments (with no player allowed to play in both), and the two winners can play a match to determine the MWCC Challenger. That would add a lot of legitimacy against Kasparov's harsh but plausible comment about Anand-Gelfand.
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I had always hoped it would have been Kramnik that played Carlsen. He seemed to have a good record against him a few years ago. Now it may be too late for Kramnik to win the Candidates.

Congrats to the two-time champion from Norway, Magnus Carlsen!

Great match. Much more memorable than 2013.

Congratulations to Carlsen. While Anand seemed to have a definite and intelligent match strategy (which he executed in a disciplined manner), it almost seemed as if Carlsen didn't need one. He frustrated Anand in many different types of position, notably in the Gruenfeld. Yet this match was very intense for both players and was completely up in the air until the final moments. I don't think anyone imagined Carlsen being utterly crushed in game three and handing a win with Black to Anand on a silver platter out of the blue a couple of games later. If Anand had seen Carlsen's blunder Kd2, the course of the match would have been very different. That may haunt Anand for the rest of his life, though I hope not.

Since 1900, only Kasparov and Karpov have won rematches with their most recent match opponent; Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, and Petrosian all lost. It's clearly not an easy thing to win a rematch, so hats off to Carlsen! Today he showed his class when the pressure was on.

One bizarre thing I could never figure out is why Kasparov likes to continue to bully and torture Anand, surfacing with deprecating comments about Vishy in every match. Here he said that a blunder is not uncommon in a WC match, but that returning the favor is--downplaying Magnus's horrendous oversight while rubbing in Vishy's. Previously, he said that the Anand-Gelfand match had nothing to do with who was the best player in the world--although four years later, Vishy convincingly demonstrated that he had never been finished and had deserved his title until the end. While Anand plays and upholds his generation's honor, Kasparov does not but merely deprecates the real fighter from the sidelines.

Wondering which will haunt more Nxe5 or Rb4 ?

LostTactic wrote on 11/23/14 at 16:02:09:


It was nice that Anand won a game and could leave having performed at a for him normal high level. But Carlsen is obviously the stronger of the two and judging from some of Anand's decision, Magnus probably has a big psychological advantage as well. So, I really hope we don't get a part 3 with the same match-up!

Caruana is the obvious challenger, if he can qualify - which I'm not so sure about. He's reached a higher level recently but those highs come and go and there are several others that could win the qualification. 

Is it two years to the next match now?

Oops, I quoted the wrong person. I meant to quote Keano's comment. about the 12 game match being insufficient.