Magnus Carlsen vs. Vishwanathan Anand, part 2! First game is November 8th. Shall we make some predictions?
I say Carlsen wins again, but this time it goes all 12 games, final score 6.5-5.5.
Vishy is back, baby!
Magnus Carlsen vs. Vishwanathan Anand, part 2! First game is November 8th. Shall we make some predictions?
I say Carlsen wins again, but this time it goes all 12 games, final score 6.5-5.5.
Vishy is back, baby!
No idea. Hard to get last year's whooping out of my head, but Carlsen hasn't seemed himself since the Gashimov (RIP) Memorial. Seemed particularly sloppy in Tromso but you have to wonder how much he really cares about Olympiads. I guess the Sinquefield wasn't too bad; everyone just got overshadowed by Caruana.
Hard to gauge Anand's form since he hasn't played much since the Candidates. I think his only game against Carlsen was a win at World Rapids.
Prediction: Carlsen 6.5-5.5
Agreed with the last poster. Last year really left an impression. I think it's Magnus again, and again pretty easily. But maybe Anand gets another point. 6.5-4.5. I wish the matches were on at a better time for American viewers.
3 days and counting . . .
Will Carlsen reveal his seconds? e4 or d4 for the first game? A short draw or a long grind?
Get psyched!
Anand starts with the white pieces tomorrow. Hopefully, he comes out swinging?
My best poorly informed guess is that Carlsen gets his act together and wins 6.5 - 4.5, but I'm curious to see what knowledgeable people like A's N have to say.
P.s. Can someone who follows chess closely explain how Caruana missed the candidates tournament?
dkny64 wrote:
Can someone who follows chess closely explain how Caruana missed the candidates tournament?
Did not place high enough in the World Cup or Grand Prix (both act as qualifiers). Was not high enough on the ratings list for an auto invite. Wildcard spot went to a Russian because the host country gets to pick. Hikaru Nakamura was actually higher rated than Caruana at the time and did not play in the Candidates for the same reasons.
Oh, and Vishy got invited for being most recent world champ.
http://candidates2014.fide.com/#Runsingcheck wrote:
dkny64 wrote:Can someone who follows chess closely explain how Caruana missed the candidates tournament?
Did not place high enough in the World Cup or Grand Prix (both act as qualifiers). Was not high enough on the ratings list for an auto invite. Wildcard spot went to a Russian because the host country gets to pick. Hikaru Nakamura was actually higher rated than Caruana at the time and did not play in the Candidates for the same reasons.
Oh, and Vishy got invited for being most recent world champ.
http://candidates2014.fide.com/#
Tx. I more or less knew the above but remain puzzled because Caruana is currently #2 on the ratings list. Did he hit a bunch of massive results after the qualifying window closed?
dkny64 wrote:
I more or less knew the above but remain puzzled because Caruana is currently #2 on the ratings list. Did he hit a bunch of massive results after the qualifying window closed?
In Feb this year Caruana was #5 in the world at 2781.
He is now the 3rd highest rated player in history. Google 2014 Sinquefield Cup. 20 of his gained rating points were from that alone. He also did well at Shamkir, the Olympiad, and the European Club Championships. He's had a monster year.
Runsingcheck wrote:
dkny64 wrote:I more or less knew the above but remain puzzled because Caruana is currently #2 on the ratings list. Did he hit a bunch of massive results after the qualifying window closed?
In Feb this year Caruana was #5 in the world at 2781.
He is now the 3rd highest rated player in history. Google 2014 Sinquefield Cup. 20 of his gained rating points were from that alone. He also did well at Shamkir, the Olympiad, and the European Club Championships. He's had a monster year.
Got it. Tx. Does this guarantee that he'll be in the next candidates tournament?
Hobbychesser: A chess player that can only play one blindfold game at a time.
Seriously, great thread. Looking forward to the rematch.
dkny64 wrote:
Does this guarantee that he'll be in the next candidates tournament?
If he is still top 3 or 4 when selections roll around again, probably.
If not, no.
Hobbychesser: any chess player who opens with 1. f4 (R.I.P. Henry Bird)
dkny64 wrote:
My best poorly informed guess is that Carlsen gets his act together and wins 6.5 - 4.5, but I'm curious to see what knowledgeable people like A's N have to say.
P.s. Can someone who follows chess closely explain how Caruana missed the candidates tournament?
Well, I guess I should chime in.
Turning first to Anand: Vishy started 2014 rather listlessly, just seeming to go through the motions in Zurich, as if waiting for a convenient time to announce his retirement. In the Candidates Tournament, however, he really turned things around. He wasn't particularly flashy, but he was super-solid, while everyone else in the tournament seemed to blunder away precious points. I thought that he was clearly the class of the tournament. After winning the Candidates Tournament, I don't think that he played any more classical games until winning the Bilbao Masters Final a couple of months ago. Again, I thought he looked very solid, and also showed some sharp tactical play that seemed to have been absent from his game in recent times. All in all, I think that Vishy goes into this match in fine form.
Carlsen is a different story. He started the year very strongly, and won world championships in rapid and blitz play along the way. In the Olympiad, however, things got strange. He started the tournament very well, and when he beat Caruana on the black side of a Scandinavian Defense (in the old days, we called it the Center-Counter Game), it seemed that he could beat anyone at will as long as he got a marginally playable game out of the opening. The very next game, however, he played atrociously against Naiditsch, losing a pawn-up queenless middlegame/endgame that I would normally expect him to grind out for a routine win. (By losing, he also cost Norway the match against Germany and basically ended his country's chance at a high team finish.) He finished the tournament with another dreadful loss, this time against a relative nobody, Ivan Saric. Proceeding to the Sinquefield Cup, which he had won very impressively in 2013, Carlsen (along with everyone else) got shellacked by Caruana, finishing a distant second with very uninspiring play.
All in all, despite Anand's recent upswing and Carlsen's recent downturn, I give Carlsen a bit of an edge. If the Olympiad and Siquefield Cup didn't give him a wake-up call, I'm not sure what will. Like others here, I'll say 6.5/5.5 in favor of Carlsen.
Someone else already explained why Caruana wasn't in the Candidates Tournament. I'll simply note that, after losing that Olympiad game to Carlsen, Caruana seemed to rise to a completely different level, playing almost every game with excellent preparation and ruthless accuracy. His performance in the Sinquefield Cup was one of the greatest tournament performances in history, and he continued his unbeaten streak for a while thereafter. In the last several weeks, however, he has lost three games and become mortal once again, so I'm not going to anoint him as Carlsen's successor quite yet.
I know nothing about chess, but this article about the Sinquefeld cup was really interesting:
Any advice from those in the know on how to follow the tournament?
Does Vishy wear a hair piece?
All games start at 4:30p IST (6a EST)
Games are played on Nov 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25. 27th= tie-break games.
Anyone following?
Carlsen is setting an increment pace, while Anand is millimetering along right behind him, looking for an opportunity to advance.
Josh Hamilton's Addiction wrote:
Does Vishy wear a hair piece?
Got to be. You can see the join.
theohiostate wrote:
Anyone following?
Yes. Anand is getting squeezed as white in a queen-and-rook endgame.
Vishy holds on with a perpetual check! Excellent save for the draw!