Chess thread

[titaniumbean]

Anand is HUGE in India. In a country where Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni are almost worshipped as deities, Anand won the Sports Personality of the Year in 2012.

that's insane. what a gangster.

[theprawnidentity]

100 pages tho

[Tal]

100 pages tho

I don't 'alf waffle.

[theprawnidentity]

FWIW I knew nothing about this match till about 3 seconds ago and now I'm looking forward to it.  Great write up.

[Tal]

FWIW I knew nothing about this match till about 3 seconds ago and now I'm looking forward to it.  Great write up.

Thanks.

At the other end of the scale, I play my third match of the season tonight. Hopefully goes as well as last week's game, rather than the one the week before

[neeko]

Tal, can you recommend anyone to follow on twitter for updates on the Anand / Carlsen match?

[Tal]

Tal, can you recommend anyone to follow on twitter for updates on the Anand / Carlsen match?

I'm not a big Twitterer but I'd expect Malcolm Pein (writes for the Telegraph) would be a good place to start. Pretty much any active prominent chess player will be watching the games and will be tweeting if they normally tweet. Hikaru Nakamura might be a good one for that. Then there's Garry Kasparov, who has played some part in Carlsen's rise to the top. Ginger GM Simon Williams (no relation) might well cover the games on his website, too.

If you want to find out who's winning any game that's in play, the website will have a Live Analysis feature (all the big FIDE events do) and that will have a computer analysing live with it.

Of course, chessbase.com will have updates every day with game reports and analysis.

Please please please, if you find anything interesting (even if you don't understand it!), post it ITT, as we can all have a bit of fun and learn a thing or two.

[curnow]

https://twitter.com/MarkTWIC
http://www.theweekinchess.com/

they do pretty good updates on everything happening in chess
should be live coverage somewhere & for the London Chess Classic in december

[Tal]

What do other top players make of this year's World Championship?

http://www.chessbase.com/post/anand-vs-carlsen-what-their-colleagues-are-saying-041113

Here is a documentary a Norwegian TV station has done on it:

http://www.chessbase.com/post/documentary-magnus-carlsen-s-last-big-title

Covers everything from the training camp to the players' mental preparation.

Enjoy

[McGlashan]

That documentary is well worth watching to build up the tourney sweat and I lol'd hard towards the end.

Magnus visits Washington square park in NYC and plays some 'chess hustlers'. In the post match interview the hustler says 'I didn't recognise him but i could tell right away he was really strong. Also he had the film crew with him and some movie star, I forget her name.'

It was Liv Tyler, not that that is important...

[Tal]

That documentary is well worth watching to build up the tourney sweat and I lol'd hard towards the end.

Magnus visits Washington square park in NYC and plays some 'chess hustlers'. In the post match interview the hustler says 'I didn't recognise him but i could tell right away he was really strong. Also he had the film crew with him and some movie star, I forget her name.'

It was Liv Tyler, not that that is important...

Yes, Magnus and Liv were the faces of GStar-Raw for a season.

[McGlashan]

Gemma Arterton image posting fail

[millidonk]

Loved the docu! The game is tomorrow?? Massive! Posting a live stream? I could do with a dodgy stomach clause in my contract. Would never have had to go to work.

[Tal]

The players drew lots for colours. Carlsen has white for the first game.

Anand made the surprise move of announcing who his assistants (in chess parlance "Seconds") are. It is normally something kept quiet until afterwards. Why? Well, you know that if your team hires Sam Alladyce, you aren't going to be watching beautiful football. Every bit of information helps the opponent.

Carlsen didn't declare his hand in reciprocation (I don't believe rumours that one of his is Kasparov). In the press conference, he looked a little guarded. Make of it what you will. He's bound to be nervous.

http://www.chessbase.com/post/wch-chennai-press-conference-and-news-reports

Here's the opening ceremony:

http://www.chessbase.com/post/wch-chennai-opening-ceremony



Don't tell me there isn't an advantage to playing at home! (This isn't the match board, BTW)

And here is Mr Kasparov's view:

http://www.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-on-anand-vs-carlsen

[The Baron]

An awesome update Tal.

Really fascinating stuff. Enjoying this!!

Isn't there a heads up match in India somewhere this month. Both players sound alright from what I've heard.

Thoughts? Is it as easy as Carlsen wins?

Been looking forward to this for over two years.

I am hugely excited about it and so, I am sure, is the chess world.

It's more than Old Guy v New Guy; Anand was a child prodigy but came about at the wrong time. Kasparov dominated during the Nineties and he would give him a terrific game, but it's like comparing Jimmy Greaves to Pele. Anand was known early on for the speed of his play, much like his opponent next week. Both have calmed down.

Anand's style was aggressive, combined with a rigorous study of opening theory. He is a remarkable and gifted man who happens to play chess. That sounds unfair, but I mean it as a compliment. He won the World Title in an all play all comp in Mexico City but has justified the crown with his defences since. He excels at matchplay, perhaps because he had such a tough schooling playing matches against Kasparov, Karpov and the-like, when he was the next best.

Anyone expecting Carlsen to walk away with the title is sorely to be disappointed. Anyone who thinks the home field advantage won't count for anything is gravely mistaken; Carlsen and his people fought tooth and nail to prevent FIDE from awarding the match to Anand's home city and, when they ignored him and did it anyway, he issued a statement personally to express his disappointment. Commentators will rightly say he will be shipped in and out from a chessboard in a silent box, but he has to get there, acclimatise and eat, sleep and live in an unfamiliar city where everyone will be funking against him.

Anand is HUGE in India. In a country where Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni are almost worshipped as deities, Anand won the Sports Personality of the Year in 2012.

A couple of years ago, Anand played an exhibition rapidplay match against Alexei Shirov. Shirov is one of the few modern players to have a reasonably main line chess opening variation named after him. Anand prepared that variation. He worked hard on it and found an interesting move against it. He deliberately played his first few moves so that Shirov could play his variation and delivered his new move. Shirov - the man who invented the variation and made it a success - had no answer.

They played again the next day and Shirov avoided his own opening. This was quite a thing. Anand taunted him by allowing the same position to arise: "Do you have an answer yet, sir?", he effectively asked. That's what Carlsen faces: a man who is fiercely tenacious and who will look to get inside the Norwegian's head.

But this is Magnus. The highest rated chess player who ever lived. He will be happy to play long games and look to outplay Anand in his strongest part of the game: the endgame. He will vary his openings so as to make it difficult for his opponent to prepare. He might not play the same variation twice in the match, even if he wins a game.

I can't wait