12 ms·

Carlsen wins game 9, only needs 1 draw in 3 remaining games

186 points by pdknsk 13y ago

S4M 13y ago
Anand's last move was a huge mistake. I am pretty sure it's because of the tension, because even I (fide rating 1900+) wouldn't have made it.
- greyman 13y ago
  Yes, it was. But anyway, even after the correct Bf1, there isn't a mating attack, and the game would probably lead to draw, which isn't good enough for Anand. So he spent almost all his time to find some decisive attack, but there probably just wasn't one to be found.
- dfan 13y ago
  Yeah. It was a standard type of calculation error (forgetting when you visualize a variation that a piece has vacated a square so that it can now be passed through) but not one I would expect a top-level player to make.
ibsathish 13y ago
Clearly shows a paradigm shift with the new generation taking over. Anand is around 44 years now and it's quite obvious that his mental reflexes would have slowed down while Carlsen is just half his age. Welcome Magnus, you are a prodigy. A real one.
- Cherian 13y ago
  Do you think age has a lot to do in chess?
  - scottharveyco 13y ago
    This graph shows a fairly consistent trend of a player´s rating peaking around the age of 30 and declining after that. http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/AgeLists.asp?Params= http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/AgeLists.asp?Params=
  - kamaal 13y ago
    Well I don't know much about chess, but I've read some chess history off late. I think age should not be an issue. But sometimes people go through rough times. It happens, people don't stay in form and the added pressure of the event makes people more desperate and to act in urgency. Big blunders happen in such situations. This isn't just restricted to chess. In nearly walk of life this happens. I know some very brilliant people who make silly mistakes during urgent production issues. We are humans after all. And we make mistakes.
    - kzrdude 13y ago
      Anand seems to have some frustrations. In an interview he lamented that he reached GM at the age of 18, while the youngest have been able to do that at 12 or 13 (Magnus at 13). He's not content with being the world champion, he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything. Since internet commentary is always interpreted with a negative tone, I'll edit to add: Anand is a fascinating personality and very sympathetic. I hoped he'd score 1 point today :-)
      - kamaal 13y ago
        >>he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything. As an Indian, and someone who practically looks at Anand as a role mode. I would be disappointed if Anand really had that attitude. Frankly speaking, I don't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or this whole belief that people are born with some skills that can't be matched by other people. This isn't just about chess. This sort of thing manifests in every other walk of life. Most kids just resign to be incapable at math due to constant comparison with other kids. Though I they would do far better if only they were motivated enough to put more effort.
        kzrdude 13y ago
        I agree! I just don't know how to fix it.
        auctiontheory 13y ago
        Frankly speaking, I don't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or ... I think you will enjoy reading the book Mindset. It's for parents, and it explores and expands on the very idea you have described ... which is the opposite of how every Indian parent thinks, so the total addressable market for the book is a big one!
  - dfan 13y ago
    Chess players typically peak in their 30s, and it's very difficult (though of course not impossible) for players to stay world-class through their 40s. This is one reason everyone has been so impressed with the play of Boris Gelfand (45) this year. See the age distribution of the top players in the world here (last column): http://2700chess.com/ http://2700chess.com/
- jrs99 13y ago
  i don't think there's a paradigm shift. winning the world championship in Chess is not like winning a World Championship in Boxing. These players play each other all the time, including in blitz. The paradigm has been clear for a while now.
pdknsk 13y ago
Skip to 13:47:30 when the commentators realise Anand made a huge blunder (and resigns on the next move). http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with-commentary/ http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with-comment...
- mherdeg 13y ago
  I think 12:47:30.
  - pdknsk 13y ago
    Are you in GMT? Maybe it's timezone aware. The video ends 14:18:22 here.
    - mherdeg 13y ago
      Wow, ok, yeah, I am in GMT and it is time zone aware. My video ends at 13:18:22.
- karpathy 13y ago
  The official commentary and analysis, imo, was not very good though. I was watching this feed live to see the players, but for audio I was over at http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork . Jerry from chessnetwork did a wonderful job of breaking it all down as it was happening. In general, his Chess YouTube channel over here http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork is awesome.
  - robryan 13y ago
    Yeah second this, Jerry is pretty amazing and makes the game pretty accessible for those like me with only a passing interest in chess.
novalis78 13y ago
Magnus Carlsen plays like he invented the game.
kadabra9 13y ago
What's really scary about Carlsen is I don't think he's close to reaching his full potential yet. He's rapidly approaching the level of dominance in elite chess not seen since Fischer or Kasparov, and he's only 22. I can't think of anyone in the next Candidate's Tournament that would be a serious threat to take Carlsen's title, aside from maybe Kramnik. I'm also really interested to see the impact Carlsen winning the World Championship has on the game's popularity worldwide. He's a very marketable champion, young with good looks and modelling contracts. Both of the former champions, Kramnik and Anand, are obviously very popular in chess circles (and Anand is immensely popular in India), but maintained generally lower profiles in the media. The next couple of years should be really interesting for chess. My hope as an American is that Nakamura can eventually qualify for the Candidate's Tournament and set up a dream title match down the road.
- jrs99 13y ago
  Carlsen is not dominant as Kasparov. He may get there, but right now, there's no comparison.
  - dfan 13y ago
    Sure there's a comparison. Kasparov maxed out at 79 points higher than the second-rated player (Kramnik). Carlsen is currently 70 points higher than the second-rated player (Aronian). By the way, Fischer at his peak was 125 points ahead of the second-rated player, Spassky.
    - jrs99 13y ago
      James Harden is may be the best shooting guard in the NBA right now. Jordan was the best shooting guard in his time.
      - dfan 13y ago
        I was specifically responding to the claim that there was no comparison of their "dominance": that is, how good they are/were relative to their competition.
po 13y ago
During the press questioning the computer they were using froze up a bit and Anand became frustrated and rattled through his thinking out loud instead. The commentator then asks Anand something along the lines of "did you think through all of these complications?" and his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight." "Yeah… so, do we have questions to the players?" oof... such high stakes and he just missed the move. Really gotta feel for him.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight." I was up at 5am to watch that. Embarrassing. Other great players (e.g. Kramnik) have lost tough matches with a lot more class.
  - deletes 13y ago
    Wait, so he wasn't being sarcastic? I wouldn't think someone at that level would be so insecure.
    - CurtMonash 13y ago
      Look into any history of Bobby Fischer. He was batshit crazy.
  - pa5tabear 13y ago
    Isn't it obvious to assume that of course he thought through the complications, but that there was just apparent escape? I can understand being frustrated by that question. Reporters for a chess championship should be more understanding of what it's like to play a tough match.
  - gnaffle 13y ago
    While the response might have been unnecessary, the question certainly was as well.
  - po 13y ago
    I think he was just frustrated with himself and then he got frustrated with the laptop and then the question. I'd cut him some slack. I just thought it was a bit funny.
simfoo 13y ago
If you're interested in the match go watch Jerry on his channel on Youtube [0]. He's uploaded some great videos so far. He also livestreams the games on Twitch btw. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos
- ZirconCode 13y ago
  Second, was about to post this. This guy is amazing. Entertaining and easy to follow, even for beginning players.
deletes 13y ago
This is a video recording of the match with live commentary and analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI
denysonique 13y ago
Hopefully Carlsen's becoming the FIDE World Champion will be loud in the media and will bring back the popularity of chess into our times.
- super_mario 13y ago
  Not very likely now that most of us have a computer in our pockets that can beat each of these guys. Chess will never be the same again.
  - TylerE 13y ago
    I don't buy that at all, no more so than the existence of motor vehicles have made track and field events irrelevant. If anything, wide accessibility of very strong computer engines only boosts the high-level game, as it enables very deep analysis - opening theory has moved quite a bit in the last 20-30 years.
    - jrs99 13y ago
      track and field is largely irrelevant. Chess is pretty irrelevant, no matter how much i love it. avant-garde Novels are also irrelevant. What i mean is that a huge majority of gifted athletes will not be going into track and field. The best athletes aren't pro runners. I'm not saying that there aren't great runners who are athletes, just that soccer, and basketball will be taking a lot of the talent away from track. Same is true of chess. Best gameplayers are not deciding to go into chess. It is a very minor game, like rugby. I would even think that Poker has more strategic talent than Chess does.
      - oskarth 13y ago
        I am curious to see what you base this on. Sounds like a lot of hand-wavy speculation to me. If you would have talked about Americans going for American Football in college rather than say, Olympic Weightlifting, that would be a different thing. When exactly does someone like a Carlsen (Norway) or Anand (India), as "gameplayers", choose to go into a different game than chess? As an example, I used to play chess when I was younger. Plenty of people later took up things like poker and starcraft, and a few became quite successful at it. These people were generally not the best chess players, instead they were more likely to be average / slightly above average (for being serious club players) in chess.
rikacomet 13y ago
The worst part about that match is, Anand spent 50+ minute on one move, to loose all the time advantage he had pushed carlsen into. First I thought, it was to make Carlsen loose his nerve, but he lost his own nerve, by moving Qe4, instead of slow push hh4. That was the turning point :( He went from winning position to a clear loss. Also, I don't get the point of resigning, on this level, it should be a fight till the end, no matter how shameful.
- peeters 13y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with resigning. First off, it acknowledges your weak position, which saves you some face for at least knowing. Second, it is a strong compliment on your opponent's skill, because only poor play from your opponent would put you into a draw/win situation. This in turn is classy, because it's saying "I want to win on my own merits, not on a mistake of my opponent." So honestly I think it makes everyone look good.
  - robrenaud 13y ago
    Fuck looks/face/perception. I don't care what you think about me. I just want to win (within the rules, of course).
    - auctiontheory 13y ago
      Once you get a reputation for playing out positions more than a rook down, you may have a harder time getting tournament invitations, sponsors, collaborators, etc. If you're an amateur, soon even your friends won't want to play you.
      - jrs99 13y ago
        it's about personality. some players do play on for a while and it is part of the rules and has nothing to do with tournament invitations. You can play for as long as you want within the rules, and every once in a while, people do just that. Others will resign very prematurely and they say so. They say they just didn't "feel" the position. Computer analysis later on says they are equal in position, though.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Carlsen is the best/only hope for chess to clean up its act (reinventing FIDE and the Candidates process), and market itself to the broader Western public, much as poker has been marketed. Keeping my fingers crossed.
- anExcitedBeast 13y ago
  As a chess player and fan, this will never happen. Poker can be very fun to watch, even for people who don't know how it's played. Chess is often boring to watch, even for people who do know how it's played. Can it's profile be increased? Absolutely. Will it ever compare to the television success of poker? I doubt it, but that's OK.
  - maaaats 13y ago
    I feel the other way: Poker is boring to watch, too much luck/randomness when watching. Fun to play, though. I'm not really a chess player, but I've watched all the matches this Championship, and all my friends (not chessplayers as well) are watching. It helps that we are Norwegian, though. And that may be the point: A western player will bring back the popularity in the west.
    - jonathansizz 13y ago
      If you're thinking of tournament poker, than I can see what you're saying. Try watching some deep-stacked cash games sometime though; this is the most high-level and interesting poker to watch (and also the most instructive).
    - dfrey 13y ago
      I agree that poker has too much randomness, but I don't think that games with zero randomness (like chess) are ideal for spectator events.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Blitz games, and bullet tie-breakers. Brightly-colored computer evaluations - a "win %" that swings wildly with every move. HD close ups of the players' frantic, sweaty faces. Pieces flying. Maurice Ashley. Anna Sharevich. With the right backing, chess can definitely be as popular as poker. Big-money TV poker is very much a modern creation. Even big-money basketball is a "creation," not a founding plank of US culture.
trycatch 13y ago
By the way, there is a very interesting tournament going on currently -- TCEC, unofficial computer chess championship [1]. The main intrigue of the tournament is the fight between Stockfish and Komodo. Houdini, dominating engine in the last few years, already lost any chances to go into the superfinal -- two very strong challengers, Komodo and Stockfish, in the last few months were able to eat huge advantage of Houdini. The author of Komodo, Don Dailey, is terminally ill, according to his wife he has just a few days to live, so it's possible that he will not know if his engine will win or not. It's really heartbreaking, he was very active in the chat of TCEC just a few days ago, commenting games, discussing computer chess and so on. Stockfish is an open-source engine that uses distributed testing framework, so anybody can participate in its development donating CPU time [2]. Both engines are very strong and have relatively equal strength. [1] http://tcec.chessdom.com/ http://tcec.chessdom.com/ [2] http://tests.stockfishchess.org/ http://tests.stockfishchess.org/
- pa5tabear 13y ago
  What are their ELO rating estimates? I was a high school player and used to mess around with Rybka, but I haven't looked into computer chess in years.
  - dfan 13y ago
    It's hard to say precisely because top players don't really play top computers competitively, but the best computer engines appear to be well above 3000 by now. The estimates on the TCEC page put Stockfish and Komodo both at around 3100.
  - trycatch 13y ago
    According to CCRL [1], Komodo 6 and Stockfish 4 are 20-25 Elo weaker than Houdini 3 (in the last few years Rybka wasn't able to compete with Houdini, in TCEC it wasn't even able to qualify into Stage 4). However TCEC uses development versions of Komodo and Stockfish that are much stronger than their latest stable releases. [1] http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/ http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
- ihaveajob 13y ago
Peroni 13y ago
I'm an experienced poker player however I'm an absolute chess novice. Aside from the obvious "just practice" advice, what are the best resources to fall back on in terms of books, videos etc if I wanted to learn the game in significant depth?
- vdhus 13y ago
  this guy makes great youtube-videos. fast way to learn new ideas. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg
- sanoli 13y ago
  If you're a novice, here's some good advice: play lots of games, but when you study, study tactics. Get some basics down on the endgame, some strategy concepts, but just the very basics, and then just study tactics. And by that I mean do tactical exercises. Most of your games, as in 98% of them, will be lost/won due to tactical errors and blunders (a blunder is just a really, really bad tactical error). If you keep to tactics you'll get pretty good over time. When you reach, say 1800, you can start getting to grips with some deeper strategical ideas, study more openings, etc. Oh, and since you asked about books, here are two books that came to mind and are pretty good (and you can go through them in this order): Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors by Lou Hays Oh, and don't mind the 'Winning' in both titles. You'll lose plenty of games right now :-)
- gamegoblin 13y ago
  Modern Chess Openings is the standard opening game resource. For endgames I recommend Silman's Complete Endgame Course. For the middle game, practice a lot, and do a lot of chess problems (there are apps that contain thousands of tactical chess problems). After a while you will start to see how the opening leads into the midgame leads into the endgame. As far as videos, ChessNetwork on YouTube is a great channel and the guy who runs it offers great insight and plays a LOT.
- kadabra9 13y ago
  I know this is cliche, but I think the single most effective way to improve is to play a lot, then review your games with a player that is stronger than you and have them point out better moves you could have made, explain your thought process, etc. If you don't have a stronger player available to look at your games (I can look at a few :) ), then just replay them yourself, look for moves where the game turned towards one player and things you could have done better. Or, plug them into a computer program and see what moves the computer suggests, and then ask yourself why the computer is suggesting them. For books, I started out by reading a few books by Yasser Seirawan. Two titles I particularly found helpful are "Winning Chess Strategies" and "Winning Chess Tactics". Seirawan is a good writer and both titles do a really good job explaining their concepts to players new to the game. Jeremy Silman wrote a book called "The Amateur's Mind" which I thought was pretty good, that compares thought processes between amateurs, intermediate, and expert level players across similar positions. One other idea is to simply get a book that is a collection of annotated master/grandmaster games, set up a board, make some coffee, and replay through them. Review the authors notes. Replay them again. Get a sense for the openings being used and the different strategies. Two good collections are "The Mammoth Book of Greatest Chess Games" by Burgess and "The Most Instructive Chess Games Played" (can't remember author). Chess.com is a great free place to play. They have free tournaments and games online, you can get a rating, track your progress, etc. If you do a paid membership, you get access to videos, tutorials etc. I just use the free membership, so I can't comment as to how good these videos are, but at least to me they look solid. Good luck. Happy to help more offline (maybe trade for poker tips :) )
medell 13y ago
My stupid marketing brain couldn't help but notice there is no mention of the word "chess". Must stop keyword optimizing as I read...
jkarni 13y ago
Pity. 27. Ne2 looked really fun. If 27...Bf5, 28. Nf4! b1=Q? 29. Rxb1 Bxb1 30.Nd5 +-. If 27...Qa5, 28. Nf4 also. Strangely, the move didn't get mentioned in the Chessbase analysis, or the official commentary.
cdelsolar 13y ago
Reminds me a bit of this guy's dominance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble) Winning 4 national championships in a row is one of the most amazingly dominant feats in anything, especially given a game that has a significant luck factor. A top tournament player in a Scrabble Facebook group just said this about him: "I'm pretty sure what he's doing is not capable by most human brains tbh, he plays better than any computer with seemingly a very small amount of tilt. You will never be as good as him, no matter how hard you try. Makes the game pointless (said this a million times b4). As a sidenote, his existence in scrabble is terrible for the game"
- zem 13y ago
  it's a shame ganesh asirvatham dropped out of the scrabble scene; he was a very impressive player, and the popular pick at the time for most likely to challenge nigel's dominance. he was also the highest-rated player in the world for a while, even though he never actually won a world championship. check out his tournament record: [http://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?p=6670][http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/most.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham] http://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?p=6670][http://www.w.... note in particular that he had a 24-12 record against nigel across 13 tournaments: http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham&name2=Nigel%20Richards http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Gan... (anecdotally, as a 1700-rated player there are lots of people who can beat me handily, but nigel and ganesh are the only two i've ever felt actually intimidated by)
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
I sometimes feel like I'm really missing out by not getting chess. It's such a rich source of metaphor.
xfax 13y ago
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the 60 minutes segment on it. Just Google it.
Wingman4l7 13y ago
This headline sorely needs a qualifier to explain what it's about -- even something simple like "[chess]" would be sufficient.
jc123 13y ago
Haven't paid attention for a while, but the reduction of games from the classical best of 24 series, seems far too short. Anand had to take this risk because there were only 4 games left and he needed to win 2 which is super tough. Another 12 games would have been interesting. So if the next game is a draw, which is highly likely, would the championship only have 10 games? Classical championship should allow for more battles; there are other tournaments where speed can be the focus.

186 points by pdknsk 13y ago

S4M 13y ago

Anand's last move was a huge mistake. I am pretty sure it's because of the tension, because even I (fide rating 1900+) wouldn't have made it.

greyman 13y ago
Yes, it was. But anyway, even after the correct Bf1, there isn't a mating attack, and the game would probably lead to draw, which isn't good enough for Anand. So he spent almost all his time to find some decisive attack, but there probably just wasn't one to be found.
dfan 13y ago
Yeah. It was a standard type of calculation error (forgetting when you visualize a variation that a piece has vacated a square so that it can now be passed through) but not one I would expect a top-level player to make.

ibsathish 13y ago

Clearly shows a paradigm shift with the new generation taking over. Anand is around 44 years now and it's quite obvious that his mental reflexes would have slowed down while Carlsen is just half his age. Welcome Magnus, you are a prodigy. A real one.

Cherian 13y ago
Do you think age has a lot to do in chess?
- scottharveyco 13y ago
  This graph shows a fairly consistent trend of a player´s rating peaking around the age of 30 and declining after that. http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/AgeLists.asp?Params= http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/AgeLists.asp?Params=
- kamaal 13y ago
  Well I don't know much about chess, but I've read some chess history off late. I think age should not be an issue. But sometimes people go through rough times. It happens, people don't stay in form and the added pressure of the event makes people more desperate and to act in urgency. Big blunders happen in such situations. This isn't just restricted to chess. In nearly walk of life this happens. I know some very brilliant people who make silly mistakes during urgent production issues. We are humans after all. And we make mistakes.
  - kzrdude 13y ago
    Anand seems to have some frustrations. In an interview he lamented that he reached GM at the age of 18, while the youngest have been able to do that at 12 or 13 (Magnus at 13). He's not content with being the world champion, he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything. Since internet commentary is always interpreted with a negative tone, I'll edit to add: Anand is a fascinating personality and very sympathetic. I hoped he'd score 1 point today :-)
    - kamaal 13y ago
      >>he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything. As an Indian, and someone who practically looks at Anand as a role mode. I would be disappointed if Anand really had that attitude. Frankly speaking, I don't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or this whole belief that people are born with some skills that can't be matched by other people. This isn't just about chess. This sort of thing manifests in every other walk of life. Most kids just resign to be incapable at math due to constant comparison with other kids. Though I they would do far better if only they were motivated enough to put more effort.
      - kzrdude 13y ago
        I agree! I just don't know how to fix it.
      - auctiontheory 13y ago
        Frankly speaking, I don't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or ... I think you will enjoy reading the book Mindset. It's for parents, and it explores and expands on the very idea you have described ... which is the opposite of how every Indian parent thinks, so the total addressable market for the book is a big one!
- dfan 13y ago
  Chess players typically peak in their 30s, and it's very difficult (though of course not impossible) for players to stay world-class through their 40s. This is one reason everyone has been so impressed with the play of Boris Gelfand (45) this year. See the age distribution of the top players in the world here (last column): http://2700chess.com/ http://2700chess.com/
jrs99 13y ago
i don't think there's a paradigm shift. winning the world championship in Chess is not like winning a World Championship in Boxing. These players play each other all the time, including in blitz. The paradigm has been clear for a while now.

pdknsk 13y ago

Skip to 13:47:30 when the commentators realise Anand made a huge blunder (and resigns on the next move). http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with-commentary/ http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with-comment...

mherdeg 13y ago
I think 12:47:30.
- pdknsk 13y ago
  Are you in GMT? Maybe it's timezone aware. The video ends 14:18:22 here.
  - mherdeg 13y ago
    Wow, ok, yeah, I am in GMT and it is time zone aware. My video ends at 13:18:22.
karpathy 13y ago
The official commentary and analysis, imo, was not very good though. I was watching this feed live to see the players, but for audio I was over at http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork . Jerry from chessnetwork did a wonderful job of breaking it all down as it was happening. In general, his Chess YouTube channel over here http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork is awesome.
- robryan 13y ago
  Yeah second this, Jerry is pretty amazing and makes the game pretty accessible for those like me with only a passing interest in chess.

novalis78 13y ago

Magnus Carlsen plays like he invented the game.

kadabra9 13y ago

What's really scary about Carlsen is I don't think he's close to reaching his full potential yet. He's rapidly approaching the level of dominance in elite chess not seen since Fischer or Kasparov, and he's only 22. I can't think of anyone in the next Candidate's Tournament that would be a serious threat to take Carlsen's title, aside from maybe Kramnik. I'm also really interested to see the impact Carlsen winning the World Championship has on the game's popularity worldwide. He's a very marketable champion, young with good looks and modelling contracts. Both of the former champions, Kramnik and Anand, are obviously very popular in chess circles (and Anand is immensely popular in India), but maintained generally lower profiles in the media. The next couple of years should be really interesting for chess. My hope as an American is that Nakamura can eventually qualify for the Candidate's Tournament and set up a dream title match down the road.

jrs99 13y ago
Carlsen is not dominant as Kasparov. He may get there, but right now, there's no comparison.
- dfan 13y ago
  Sure there's a comparison. Kasparov maxed out at 79 points higher than the second-rated player (Kramnik). Carlsen is currently 70 points higher than the second-rated player (Aronian). By the way, Fischer at his peak was 125 points ahead of the second-rated player, Spassky.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    James Harden is may be the best shooting guard in the NBA right now. Jordan was the best shooting guard in his time.
    - dfan 13y ago
      I was specifically responding to the claim that there was no comparison of their "dominance": that is, how good they are/were relative to their competition.

po 13y ago

During the press questioning the computer they were using froze up a bit and Anand became frustrated and rattled through his thinking out loud instead. The commentator then asks Anand something along the lines of "did you think through all of these complications?" and his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight." "Yeah… so, do we have questions to the players?" oof... such high stakes and he just missed the move. Really gotta feel for him.

auctiontheory 13y ago
his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight." I was up at 5am to watch that. Embarrassing. Other great players (e.g. Kramnik) have lost tough matches with a lot more class.
- deletes 13y ago
  Wait, so he wasn't being sarcastic? I wouldn't think someone at that level would be so insecure.
  - CurtMonash 13y ago
    Look into any history of Bobby Fischer. He was batshit crazy.
- pa5tabear 13y ago
  Isn't it obvious to assume that of course he thought through the complications, but that there was just apparent escape? I can understand being frustrated by that question. Reporters for a chess championship should be more understanding of what it's like to play a tough match.
- gnaffle 13y ago
  While the response might have been unnecessary, the question certainly was as well.
- po 13y ago
  I think he was just frustrated with himself and then he got frustrated with the laptop and then the question. I'd cut him some slack. I just thought it was a bit funny.

simfoo 13y ago

If you're interested in the match go watch Jerry on his channel on Youtube [0]. He's uploaded some great videos so far. He also livestreams the games on Twitch btw. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos

ZirconCode 13y ago
Second, was about to post this. This guy is amazing. Entertaining and easy to follow, even for beginning players.

deletes 13y ago

This is a video recording of the match with live commentary and analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI

denysonique 13y ago

Hopefully Carlsen's becoming the FIDE World Champion will be loud in the media and will bring back the popularity of chess into our times.

super_mario 13y ago
Not very likely now that most of us have a computer in our pockets that can beat each of these guys. Chess will never be the same again.
- TylerE 13y ago
  I don't buy that at all, no more so than the existence of motor vehicles have made track and field events irrelevant. If anything, wide accessibility of very strong computer engines only boosts the high-level game, as it enables very deep analysis - opening theory has moved quite a bit in the last 20-30 years.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    track and field is largely irrelevant. Chess is pretty irrelevant, no matter how much i love it. avant-garde Novels are also irrelevant. What i mean is that a huge majority of gifted athletes will not be going into track and field. The best athletes aren't pro runners. I'm not saying that there aren't great runners who are athletes, just that soccer, and basketball will be taking a lot of the talent away from track. Same is true of chess. Best gameplayers are not deciding to go into chess. It is a very minor game, like rugby. I would even think that Poker has more strategic talent than Chess does.
    - oskarth 13y ago
      I am curious to see what you base this on. Sounds like a lot of hand-wavy speculation to me. If you would have talked about Americans going for American Football in college rather than say, Olympic Weightlifting, that would be a different thing. When exactly does someone like a Carlsen (Norway) or Anand (India), as "gameplayers", choose to go into a different game than chess? As an example, I used to play chess when I was younger. Plenty of people later took up things like poker and starcraft, and a few became quite successful at it. These people were generally not the best chess players, instead they were more likely to be average / slightly above average (for being serious club players) in chess.

rikacomet 13y ago

The worst part about that match is, Anand spent 50+ minute on one move, to loose all the time advantage he had pushed carlsen into. First I thought, it was to make Carlsen loose his nerve, but he lost his own nerve, by moving Qe4, instead of slow push hh4. That was the turning point :( He went from winning position to a clear loss. Also, I don't get the point of resigning, on this level, it should be a fight till the end, no matter how shameful.

peeters 13y ago
I don't see anything wrong with resigning. First off, it acknowledges your weak position, which saves you some face for at least knowing. Second, it is a strong compliment on your opponent's skill, because only poor play from your opponent would put you into a draw/win situation. This in turn is classy, because it's saying "I want to win on my own merits, not on a mistake of my opponent." So honestly I think it makes everyone look good.
- robrenaud 13y ago
  Fuck looks/face/perception. I don't care what you think about me. I just want to win (within the rules, of course).
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Once you get a reputation for playing out positions more than a rook down, you may have a harder time getting tournament invitations, sponsors, collaborators, etc. If you're an amateur, soon even your friends won't want to play you.
    - jrs99 13y ago
      it's about personality. some players do play on for a while and it is part of the rules and has nothing to do with tournament invitations. You can play for as long as you want within the rules, and every once in a while, people do just that. Others will resign very prematurely and they say so. They say they just didn't "feel" the position. Computer analysis later on says they are equal in position, though.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Carlsen is the best/only hope for chess to clean up its act (reinventing FIDE and the Candidates process), and market itself to the broader Western public, much as poker has been marketed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

anExcitedBeast 13y ago
As a chess player and fan, this will never happen. Poker can be very fun to watch, even for people who don't know how it's played. Chess is often boring to watch, even for people who do know how it's played. Can it's profile be increased? Absolutely. Will it ever compare to the television success of poker? I doubt it, but that's OK.
- maaaats 13y ago
  I feel the other way: Poker is boring to watch, too much luck/randomness when watching. Fun to play, though. I'm not really a chess player, but I've watched all the matches this Championship, and all my friends (not chessplayers as well) are watching. It helps that we are Norwegian, though. And that may be the point: A western player will bring back the popularity in the west.
  - jonathansizz 13y ago
    If you're thinking of tournament poker, than I can see what you're saying. Try watching some deep-stacked cash games sometime though; this is the most high-level and interesting poker to watch (and also the most instructive).
  - dfrey 13y ago
    I agree that poker has too much randomness, but I don't think that games with zero randomness (like chess) are ideal for spectator events.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Blitz games, and bullet tie-breakers. Brightly-colored computer evaluations - a "win %" that swings wildly with every move. HD close ups of the players' frantic, sweaty faces. Pieces flying. Maurice Ashley. Anna Sharevich. With the right backing, chess can definitely be as popular as poker. Big-money TV poker is very much a modern creation. Even big-money basketball is a "creation," not a founding plank of US culture.

trycatch 13y ago

By the way, there is a very interesting tournament going on currently -- TCEC, unofficial computer chess championship [1]. The main intrigue of the tournament is the fight between Stockfish and Komodo. Houdini, dominating engine in the last few years, already lost any chances to go into the superfinal -- two very strong challengers, Komodo and Stockfish, in the last few months were able to eat huge advantage of Houdini. The author of Komodo, Don Dailey, is terminally ill, according to his wife he has just a few days to live, so it's possible that he will not know if his engine will win or not. It's really heartbreaking, he was very active in the chat of TCEC just a few days ago, commenting games, discussing computer chess and so on. Stockfish is an open-source engine that uses distributed testing framework, so anybody can participate in its development donating CPU time [2]. Both engines are very strong and have relatively equal strength. [1] http://tcec.chessdom.com/ http://tcec.chessdom.com/ [2] http://tests.stockfishchess.org/ http://tests.stockfishchess.org/

pa5tabear 13y ago
What are their ELO rating estimates? I was a high school player and used to mess around with Rybka, but I haven't looked into computer chess in years.
- dfan 13y ago
  It's hard to say precisely because top players don't really play top computers competitively, but the best computer engines appear to be well above 3000 by now. The estimates on the TCEC page put Stockfish and Komodo both at around 3100.
- trycatch 13y ago
  According to CCRL [1], Komodo 6 and Stockfish 4 are 20-25 Elo weaker than Houdini 3 (in the last few years Rybka wasn't able to compete with Houdini, in TCEC it wasn't even able to qualify into Stage 4). However TCEC uses development versions of Komodo and Stockfish that are much stronger than their latest stable releases. [1] http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/ http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
ihaveajob 13y ago

Peroni 13y ago

I'm an experienced poker player however I'm an absolute chess novice. Aside from the obvious "just practice" advice, what are the best resources to fall back on in terms of books, videos etc if I wanted to learn the game in significant depth?

vdhus 13y ago
this guy makes great youtube-videos. fast way to learn new ideas. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg
sanoli 13y ago
If you're a novice, here's some good advice: play lots of games, but when you study, study tactics. Get some basics down on the endgame, some strategy concepts, but just the very basics, and then just study tactics. And by that I mean do tactical exercises. Most of your games, as in 98% of them, will be lost/won due to tactical errors and blunders (a blunder is just a really, really bad tactical error). If you keep to tactics you'll get pretty good over time. When you reach, say 1800, you can start getting to grips with some deeper strategical ideas, study more openings, etc. Oh, and since you asked about books, here are two books that came to mind and are pretty good (and you can go through them in this order): Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors by Lou Hays Oh, and don't mind the 'Winning' in both titles. You'll lose plenty of games right now :-)
gamegoblin 13y ago
Modern Chess Openings is the standard opening game resource. For endgames I recommend Silman's Complete Endgame Course. For the middle game, practice a lot, and do a lot of chess problems (there are apps that contain thousands of tactical chess problems). After a while you will start to see how the opening leads into the midgame leads into the endgame. As far as videos, ChessNetwork on YouTube is a great channel and the guy who runs it offers great insight and plays a LOT.
kadabra9 13y ago
I know this is cliche, but I think the single most effective way to improve is to play a lot, then review your games with a player that is stronger than you and have them point out better moves you could have made, explain your thought process, etc. If you don't have a stronger player available to look at your games (I can look at a few :) ), then just replay them yourself, look for moves where the game turned towards one player and things you could have done better. Or, plug them into a computer program and see what moves the computer suggests, and then ask yourself why the computer is suggesting them. For books, I started out by reading a few books by Yasser Seirawan. Two titles I particularly found helpful are "Winning Chess Strategies" and "Winning Chess Tactics". Seirawan is a good writer and both titles do a really good job explaining their concepts to players new to the game. Jeremy Silman wrote a book called "The Amateur's Mind" which I thought was pretty good, that compares thought processes between amateurs, intermediate, and expert level players across similar positions. One other idea is to simply get a book that is a collection of annotated master/grandmaster games, set up a board, make some coffee, and replay through them. Review the authors notes. Replay them again. Get a sense for the openings being used and the different strategies. Two good collections are "The Mammoth Book of Greatest Chess Games" by Burgess and "The Most Instructive Chess Games Played" (can't remember author). Chess.com is a great free place to play. They have free tournaments and games online, you can get a rating, track your progress, etc. If you do a paid membership, you get access to videos, tutorials etc. I just use the free membership, so I can't comment as to how good these videos are, but at least to me they look solid. Good luck. Happy to help more offline (maybe trade for poker tips :) )

medell 13y ago

My stupid marketing brain couldn't help but notice there is no mention of the word "chess". Must stop keyword optimizing as I read...

jkarni 13y ago

Pity. 27. Ne2 looked really fun. If 27...Bf5, 28. Nf4! b1=Q? 29. Rxb1 Bxb1 30.Nd5 +-. If 27...Qa5, 28. Nf4 also. Strangely, the move didn't get mentioned in the Chessbase analysis, or the official commentary.

cdelsolar 13y ago

Reminds me a bit of this guy's dominance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble) Winning 4 national championships in a row is one of the most amazingly dominant feats in anything, especially given a game that has a significant luck factor. A top tournament player in a Scrabble Facebook group just said this about him: "I'm pretty sure what he's doing is not capable by most human brains tbh, he plays better than any computer with seemingly a very small amount of tilt. You will never be as good as him, no matter how hard you try. Makes the game pointless (said this a million times b4). As a sidenote, his existence in scrabble is terrible for the game"

zem 13y ago
it's a shame ganesh asirvatham dropped out of the scrabble scene; he was a very impressive player, and the popular pick at the time for most likely to challenge nigel's dominance. he was also the highest-rated player in the world for a while, even though he never actually won a world championship. check out his tournament record: [http://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?p=6670][http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/most.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham] http://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?p=6670][http://www.w.... note in particular that he had a 24-12 record against nigel across 13 tournaments: http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham&name2=Nigel%20Richards http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Gan... (anecdotally, as a 1700-rated player there are lots of people who can beat me handily, but nigel and ganesh are the only two i've ever felt actually intimidated by)

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

I sometimes feel like I'm really missing out by not getting chess. It's such a rich source of metaphor.

xfax 13y ago

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the 60 minutes segment on it. Just Google it.

Wingman4l7 13y ago

This headline sorely needs a qualifier to explain what it's about -- even something simple like "[chess]" would be sufficient.

jc123 13y ago

Haven't paid attention for a while, but the reduction of games from the classical best of 24 series, seems far too short. Anand had to take this risk because there were only 4 games left and he needed to win 2 which is super tough. Another 12 games would have been interesting. So if the next game is a draw, which is highly likely, would the championship only have 10 games? Classical championship should allow for more battles; there are other tournaments where speed can be the focus.