Huge or hype?

Has Anand-Carlsen match justified the hype?
Nov 20, 2013 - T.N. Raghu |
Age Correspondent | Chennai

The Anand-Carlsen world championship match had been hyped up to be the biggest event in chess after Fischer vs Spassky in 1972. “Has the contest in Chennai justified the build-up?” this newspaper asked three grandmasters and the man who founded ChessBase, a premium website for players across the world.

Praveen Thipsay (India’s third GM): I wouldn’t say the current championship is of inferior quality. Anand’s two successive reverses have tilted the scales in favour of Carlsen. Had the Indian pulled off a win in Game 3, the complexion of the whole series would have changed.

The Fischer-Spassky match redefined chess and it is difficult to compare it to any other event. The Western world only had contempt for the mind game before Fischer defeated Spassky. For Americans, anything the Soviet Union excelled at was bad then. Even Fischer had gone on record that America hadn’t helped him in any way before the 1972 match and it embraced him only after his win. Except Sigmund Freud, no noted figure from the Western world spoke or wrote about chess in a big way. For putting chess on the sports map and making it a part of popular culture, the Fischer-Spassky match has no parallels.

Sinisa Drazic (Serbian GM): The absence of blood and dirt has made Anand vs Carlsen subdued. This is what you get when two clean and non-controversial guys fight over the board! Leave alone Fischer vs Spassky, even the subsequent Karpov vs Korchnoi had so much intrigue as a result of the supposed involvement of the KGB.

Susan Polgar (Hungarian-American GM and DD commentator): Even though the two losses of Anand in round five and six have made the contest less dramatic, I feel the championship in Chennai is still big based on the viewership figures we have gotten from DD. The following for the match on the internet is extraordinary as well. Don’t forget that the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union was the main plot in Fischer’s match against Spassky.

Frederic Friedel (ChessBase founder): The current match isn’t India vs Norway in the way it was USA vs USSR in 1972. I know both Anand and Carslen and they are outstanding gentlemen. The two are great ambassadors for the game. I still find the Chennai match gripping.

Source: http://www.asianage.com