Carlsen – the nettlesome World Champion

12/29/2013 – "Carlsen won because he is the better athlete and not the better chess player," wrote a commentator after the Chennai match. In drawn positions the Norwegian plays on and on, sitting his opponent out, waiting for errors. That is profoundly misleading: Magnus Carlsen's success lies in his ability to play "consistently accurate moves that also maximise the chances of inaccuracies from the opponent," writes GM Jonathan Rowson.

Magnus Carlsen's Some Games!

Rosner: "Let the loser grieve in peace!"

Chess Column
By: Cecil Rosner
Posted: 11/30/2013 1:00 AM

One of the most absurd aspects of the recent world chess championship match was the press conference that followed each encounter.

After hours of gruelling play, Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen were forced to answer some strange and often inane questions. Much of it was almost too painful to watch.

As a professional journalist, I am generally in favour of full transparency and expansive media access. Sometimes grandmasters can offer interesting insights into the games they have just played, but that doesn't mean it always makes sense.

I think back to some of the gruelling and emotionally draining games I played in my career and wondered what it would be like to have to answer questions immediately following a harrowing loss. What can you say? Yes, I was an idiot. No, I guess I should not have blundered.

Here is one exchange that occurred after Game 6, when Anand had just suffered his second straight loss to Carlsen.

"Mr. Anand, you said it was a blow to you," said Ole Rolfsrud of Norwegian television. "How will you now work out of this blow?"

"Well, you just do your best," was Anand's polite and sensible answer.

After another question from an Indian journalist who wanted Anand to comment on the retirement of a popular Indian cricket player ("There are other things on my mind," said Anand), Rolfsrud was back for more.

"I am still wondering if Mr. Anand will elaborate by what you mean by doing your best?"

This seemed to be the final straw for the former world champion, who snapped back: "Doing your best means doing your best. I don't know why you don't understand English."

My full sympathies are with Anand on this. In football or hockey, you can sometimes blame conditioning or injuries or a variety of other factors for a lack of success. In chess, it usually comes back to your own mind. The reason you lost or didn't play well is because you screwed up. The synapses in your brain were not firing as well as the other guy's.

The post-game press conference seems like a strange sort of public flagellation for the losing player. They are forced to explain the unexplainable. Then when they fall short of doing so to the satisfaction of the flagellators, they are asked to elaborate on the unexplainable.

Here is my unsolicited advice to the organizers of major matches: Make the press conferences voluntary. Let the loser grieve in peace. Internet audiences all around the world will thank you.

Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com

Anand: I didn’t get a grip on Carlsen’s style

Anand says his opponent has refined his style a lot and is stronger and more effective with it.

Akhil is yet to turn three but inadvertently knows how to make all the right moves that helps ‘Papa’ Viswanathan Anand forget his pain and play without rules.

In the days after the World chess championship match, an understandably disappointed Anand has found an unlikely stress-buster in his son. Clearly, the five-time World champion will take time to deal with the situation but he is firmly on the recovery course.

Looking forward to playing in a 16-player rapid tournament from December 11 to 15 in London, a relaxed Anand spoke to Rakesh Rao of The Hindu in detail about his take on the World Chess Championship Match.

Excerpts are below, an extended version will appear in weekly sports magazine Sportstar.

Q: Anand, how have you been spending your time in the past 10 days?

A: Actually, it was quite nice. I came back home (after the match), back to Akhil and had some wonderful experiences with him, playing, running around the house, Akhil calling me “Papa… Papa…” Then we went to a school dance of his. It has been wonderful in the sense that though it’s only a week, it feels like it is months since the match passed; you really put it behind you. Then meeting up with friends, I also had dinner with some school friends. Generally, life goes on, what can you do? Honestly, in the last few days, I didn’t want to think about chess. I wanted to play with Akhil.

Q: Coming to the match, you had plenty of positives to look at from the first four games. After the third game, you said, your upside was not adequate enough to force a win. After detailed analysis, do you still have the same view?

A: I definitely feel it was a mistake that I underestimated my possibilities in that game. It was a mistake. He (Carlsen) mentioned it as well that he thought I had let him off the hook so easily. Well, that I more or less concede. I agree. I should have pressed him a bit more. Thereafter, I atoned by escaping, in Game Four, the way I did. It was a nice defence. The problem was that after Game Four I thought we were really into the match. We were warmed up and it was going to get exciting. But we know what happened next.

Q: Where did you lose the thread in the Game Five?

A: Actually, it was throughout the game, I mean, there were small mistakes, here and there. I didn’t lose the game in one move. I lost it over several and it’s exactly what I had hoped not to do but it was exactly what I did. So Game Five was one of those losses which hurt because you do it bit by bit. Not one blunder, but the game slips away from you.

Q: Going by your body-language during this game, is it fair to conclude that you were getting increasingly annoyed with yourself due to the choices you were making? You appeared to make some random moves, as well.

A: Yes. It is quite perceptive. I think, it’s clear I could feel I was making small mistakes and that was getting annoying. But you have to still get a grip on yourself because there is no use crying over split milk and all that. You have to get your thoughts back to the game but there was residue of annoyance. At every moment, I knew that had I been more precise earlier, it could have gone better or have been easier.

Q: Would you say your vast experience failed you, when it mattered, in the match?

A: Yes. I think so. Your strength comes into play when you are able to stop your opponent playing to his strengths. But I never really succeeded in doing that or only did that briefly. In the end, he was just stronger and he was able to impose his style of play.

Q: In my interview, Magnus Carlsen said he had planned to make you play slow, long games and force the errors. Was his energy-level in the fifth and sixth hours of play decisive since he continued to find moves of optimum strength?

A: Yes. I mean, I never really adapted to his style well. Clearly, he has refined his style a lot recently. He has become stronger and more effective with it. So, I also had this feeling that if I had managed to pull it off, it would have been a different story. But I didn’t manage to get a grip on his style.

Q: Having brought Carlsen under pressure from the start of Game Nine, mainly due to your decision to open the game with d4 (pushing the queen-pawn to the fourth rank), do you regret not doing so in the earlier games with white pieces?

A: Yes. But I made a big strategic decision to focus on e4 (pushing the king-pawn to the fourth rank). In hindsight, that was the worst move of the match. Again (smiles) in hindsight, many things are clear. For this match, for some reason, I just felt it was simpler to play e4 and there were grounds for it. Based on my tournament results and all, I felt it was better to concentrate on e4. And it turned out to be a bad mistake.

Source: susanpolgar.blogspot.com

World Championship Chennai: Reports and opinions

12/3/2013 – It's ten days since Magnus Carlsen snatched the most valuable title from India's Viswanathan Anand. There are literally hundreds of reports in the international press – and a number of remarkable interviews with the players. In case you missed them we bring you a selection, with titles like "My turn to teach Anand now" and speculation on the super-secret men who helped Magnus.

 

When Magnus Carlsen became the world chess champion a few days ago, I don’t think anyone in the chess world lost money. All bets were on the almost-twenty-three-year-old Norwegian’s beating the reigning grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand. With play in Chennai, India, Anand had the home-court advantage, but, at nearly forty-four, he is getting old for top-level chess, and Carlsen gained momentum as the match went on. He didn’t lose in ten games. Perhaps the biggest surprise was in the last one, when Carlsen, with the prize in his grasp, played to win rather than accepting what looked to be Anand’s offer of a draw, which would have clinched it for Carlsen anyway. He could have been the world champion a couple of hours sooner.
Or even a year earlier. Carlsen, whom I wrote about for the magazine in 2011, had skipped the previous world championship in 2012, objecting to the way in which the qualifying matches were conducted, and so, as it turns out, forewent the chance to be the youngest world champion ever.
But, in the meantime, his FIDE rating, the chess world’s mathematical system for ranking tournament players, had continued to rise, and even before he and Anand settled into their chairs, his was the highest in history, surpassing even that of Garry Kasparov, who, starting in 2009, had coached him for about a year—before Carlsen decided that the passionate Russian got him too hepped up to enjoy the game. (Kasparov, for his part, threw his hands up at Carlsen’s casual approach to training, telling me back in 2011 that he “was not in a position to make him change his personality.”) But Kasparov was always impressed by Carlsen’s intense will, and, after the Chennai match, told me that he wasn’t surprised that Carlsen went for the outright victory instead of settling for a draw in the final game: “He likes to play, he likes to win, and he had the better position. He’s a maximalist like Fischer, and he expects to fight to the death.” (In this particular game, Anand salvaged a draw.)

• Read the full article in The New Yorker

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You had plenty of positives to look at from the first four games. After the third game, you said, your upside was not adequate enough to force a win. After detailed analysis, do you still have the same view?

I definitely feel it was a mistake that I underestimated my possibilities in that game. It was a mistake. He (Carlsen) mentioned it as well that he thought I had let him off the hook so easily. Well, that I more or less concede. I agree. I should have pressed him a bit more. Thereafter, I atoned by escaping, in Game Four, the way I did. It was a nice defence. The problem was that after Game Four I thought we were really into the match. We were warmed up and it was going to get exciting. But we know what happened next.

Where did you lose the thread in the Game Five?

Actually, it was throughout the game, I mean, there were small mistakes, here and there. I didn’t lose the game in one move. I lost it over several and it’s exactly what I had hoped not to do but it was exactly what I did. So Game Five was one of those losses which hurt because you do it bit by bit. Not one blunder, but the game slips away from you.

Going by your body language during this game, is it fair to conclude that you were getting increasingly annoyed with yourself due to the choices you were making? You appeared to make some random moves, as well.

Yes. It is quite perceptive. I think, it’s clear I could feel I was making small mistakes and that was getting annoying. But you have to still get a grip on yourself because there is no use crying over split milk and all that. You have to get your thoughts back to the game but there was residue of annoyance. At every moment, I knew that had I been more precise earlier, it could have gone better or have been easier.

Would you say your vast experience failed you, when it mattered, in the match?

Yes. I think so. Your strength comes into play when you are able to stop your opponent playing to his strengths. But I never really succeeded in doing that or only did that briefly. In the end, he was just stronger and he was able to impose his style of play.

In my interview, Magnus Carlsen said he had planned to make you play slow, long games and force the errors. Was his energy-level in the fifth and sixth hours of play decisive since he continued to find moves of optimum strength?

Yes. I mean, I never really adapted to his style well. Clearly, he has refined his style a lot recently. He has become stronger and more effective with it. So, I also had this feeling that if I had managed to pull it off, it would have been a different story. But I didn’t manage to get a grip on his style.

Having brought Carlsen under pressure from the start of Game Nine, mainly due to your decision to open the game with d4 (pushing the queen-pawn to the fourth rank), do you regret not doing so in the earlier games with white pieces?

Yes. But I made a big strategic decision to focus on e4 (pushing the king-pawn to the fourth rank). In hindsight, that was the worst move of the match. Again (smiles) in hindsight, many things are clear. For this match, for some reason, I just felt it was simpler to play e4 and there were grounds for it. Based on my tournament results and all, I felt it was better to concentrate on e4. And it turned out to be a bad mistake.

• Source: The Hindu, December 2, 2013 22:22 IST

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Viswanathan Anand has accomplished everything that a chess player could possibly want to. He has been a five-time world champion and in three different formats. He was the undisputed world champion for six years. He has been the world number one, and also the single biggest reason for a chess renaissance in his country. And he has been a tremendous ambassador for the game, having played at the elite level for well over a quarter of a century. He simply has nothing left to prove.
But today, as he turns 44 in a couple of weeks, he’s no longer the world champion. Many doubt that he could win the next edition of the Candidates Tournament so as to be able to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world title in 2014. If his match play in the recently concluded world championship battle with Carlsen in Chennai is any indication, then Anand’s form is in clear decline. Grandmasters the world over have remarked how uncharacteristic were the blunders he made that eventually cost him the world title.
The first clue that the champion was not at his prime any more was, of course, his strategy against the world number one. In his previous world title matches, Anand played to his strengths: his legendary opening repertoire and his supremacy in rapid chess. He played safe, and kept drawing games, knowing full well that if the scores were level at the end of the regular format, he could demolish the opponent in the tie-break or rapid games that would follow. Fully aware of this, and faced with draw after draw as the match progressed, his opponent would be forced to take more and more risks to force a victory and avoid a tie-break. In the process, in the later games, he would end up making mistakes, and play into Anand’s hands. This plan worked superbly against Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand. But it was never going to work against Carlsen. Yet Anand did not or could not move away from his tried and tested strategy.
So, rather than make his strengths count, by focusing on dictating the game through his superior opening preparations—which also happens to be the one area Carlsen could not match him—Anand chose to try and match Carlsen in end game wizardry. To his credit, he did manage to compete on an almost equal footing. But unfortunately he did not—and some would say, could not—have the staying power of someone two decades his junior.
The second problem Anand had was that Carlsen does not like to draw. He would rather play on and on for eternity in the expectation of squeezing out some advantage rather than settle for a draw. This meant that, from having to work hard for a win, Anand now found himself working hard for a draw—not exactly what you would expect of a world champion. And this is where the psychological battle was won by Carlsen. He has said as much in his many interviews—once he saw that the world champion was as nervous as he was, and playing conservative chess, the challenger knew he could relax and play his normal game, which he went on to do with devastating effect.
In Anand’s failure, there are shades of Roger Federer’s failure to come up with a viable strategy against the first player to challenge him when he was still at his peak—a younger, fitter and stronger Rafael Nadal. The only blemish in Federer’s glorious record is his failure to respond as a champion and stamp his superiority over Nadal. This failure, many would argue, has more to do with his mind than his game. Federer inevitably ended up playing to Nadal’s strengths—engaging in long rallies where the latter would eventually wear him out. Carlsen did the same to Anand. Just as Nadal kept the ball in play till the master committed an error, or ceded an opening for a winner, Carlsen kept moving the pieces around accurately till the champion made an error.

• Read the full informative article by G. Sampath in LiveMint from Dec 02 2013

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Magnus Carlsen has, at various points, mentioned that once he sits down on the chess board he doesn’t believe that anyone could beat him. He carried that same confidence into the World Championship match too. What were your thoughts at the start of the match? Did you feel invincible too?

I thought that if I had a good start, I would be able to play well. I thought that if I had a good start, I could force him out of his comfort zones. I was under no illusions that I would have to raise my game – but that’s exactly what I had worked so hard for. I knew I had a chance. I knew my recent shape had not been very good. But I was hoping that I had managed to turn all that around.

A match like this is always tough. In the sense, it almost feels like you are locked in a cage at times. At what point did you think it was over for you?

Well, it was staggered. The first few games were probably okay. I thought I held my own. The fifth game (his endgame errors cost game five) loss hit me really hard. It was precisely the thing that I had worked so hard on; the areas that I had sought to improve in my preparation and I was unable to execute. In that sense, I failed. The 9th game blunder didn’t change things very much – I didn’t see a win, it would have been a draw. The 10th game was really nothing.

So what is it about Carlsen? Did any aspect of his game surprise you?

He surprised me by changing so little. I know how he plays. But I expected him to come out and try something different. But he stuck to his guns – it was brave. It was also unexpected for me. Usually for a World Championship match, people work on something different… maybe something to surprise the opponent. Carlsen just stayed the same.

You have said that you couldn’t figure out Carlsen’s style. What does that mean?

I thought I could get a grip on him. I thought that I could force him to make mistakes. I thought that if I stayed with him in the early going, I would be able to match him. But his style makes it difficult. In a sense, he is an allrounder. He can do everything well and he makes mistakes – but they aren’t big enough to take advantage of. He is also unconventional – there are times when he will play something and take it back on the next move… to the same place.

Did it feel like you were playing a computer?

His approach resembles… I hesitate to say… computer. Put him in front of one and he’d lose easily. But he is very confident of his calculating ability – so in that sense… yes, probably like a human computer – if that makes sense.

You have spoken about wanting to play in the Candidates next year. Does this loss change anything? Will your method change? Will you change?

I think the recent trend is away from openings. In a sense, computers have killed the opening phase. There is only so much that you can do. So if anything can be done, it is to rebalance the game. That can only happen by concentrating on the middle and end game. For now though, I have taken a break from chess. Then I got to London for a tournament. Then I take another break – a long break. That’s when I will give it some serious thought – what I want to do and how I want to do it.

• Read the full interview in Firstpost here

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Who were Carlsen’s seconds? Who were the men who helped him beat Viswanathan Anand? Who helped him prepare? These are all questions that were asked at various times during the World Chess Championship match. And the Norwegian champs response to most of those questions has been a shake of the head or a simple ‘No.’ This even while Anand came out an revealed K Sasikiran, Sandipan Chanda, Radoslav Wojtaszek and Peter Leko as his seconds before the start of the match.
In an interview with the Hindu after claiming the title, the 22-year-old stuck to his guns and kept a wrap on the identities of his seconds. “It’s mainly my decision. That’s the way I’ve understood it. It’s nice that I am going to play another World championship match (in 2014),” said Carlsen. “It doesn’t mean that I’m not very grateful for their hard work. They have done a wonderful job. I think, it is nice for the future matches not to reveal too much.”
The only name that has come out in the open is GM Jon Ludvig Hammer, who is also from Norway. On Norwegian television — they have talked about what Carlsen looks for in a second: It’s really more on having people around him that puts him in the right mood. Their Elo rating or strengths are of not as much consequence. Hammer has known Carlsen for a while and he was perfect for the job.
Carlsen also took help from computers to help in his preparation. Oslo firm Basefarm used a program that ran a powerful calculator which helped him analyse games. In fact, he had been connected to these powerful servers in India too, and while training in Norway. But there is another human element that is just as important. Seconds can help you prepare for human opponents a lot better than computers. Computers don’t feel the stress of a moment and they can’t pile on any visual pressure on the opponent — which is why Carlsen also depended on two others GMs – Ian Nepomniatchi and Laurent Fressinet.
Sources close to the Anand camp have told Firstpost that they already knew who the seconds were before the start of the match, so there was no mystery there for the Indian GM. Fressinet, 32, is a good friend of Carlsen — which is evident from this Youtube video (a must watch by the way):
video:
He is France number three and he finished second in the European Individual Championship in Plovdiv in 2012. He usually plays for France in team events but gave the European Team Championship a miss this year.
Nepomniachtchi is a 23-year-old Russian chess grandmaster and the 2010 Russian Chess Champion. As of November 2013, he was listed by FIDE as having an Elo rating of 2721. He has worked as a second for Carlsen before (the 2012 London Chess Classic and the Candidates tournament in March) and like Fressinet, he also didn’t play in the European Team Championship this year.

• Source: FirstPost

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On why Anand does not figure (Carlsen had recently named Aronian and Kramnik) among those he feels could be his next challenger...

Firstly, Vishy will have to figure out if he would want to play in the Candidates tournament. Although he's an all-time great player, his results lately have not been too good and he'll need some time to readjust to be able to come back. It all depends on him now. He needs to figure some things out and if he manages to keep his motivation after this match he will still be a force to reckon with. Right now though I don't think he's the biggest favourite at the Candidates.

On what he's learnt from Anand...

To be honest I've learnt a lot from him in the past, both playing against him and especially while training with him. Just the kind of positions that he understands, the way he would just outplay me like no one else did in several kinds of positions. Also the precision with which he analyses games and positions has been an eye-opener. In this match I showed him in a way that although he's taught me many things in the past, it's probably now my turn to teach him. So, it's safe to say I've surpassed him now.

On whether next year's title match is already on his mind...

Yes, I'm already thinking about it. It is also a reason why I have not spoken much about my current seconds since they could be part of my team then as well. I have the lead in world rankings and the title as well now. I don't think it's my duty to think who will play against me, it should in fact be the other way round. My opponents will have to figure out how to deal with me. I think I will be the man to beat for quite some time now.

On whom he owes his win to...

My family especially my father, team and seconds. They have attended to all my requests, no matter how unreasonable those might have been. My seconds have worked hard and have not slept well so that I would be well prepared. They actually worked harder than I asked them to!

• Read the full Times of India article here

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Magnus Carlsen, 23 on Saturday, has achieved the strongest global recognition for any chess player since Garry Kasparov. The Carlsen brand stems from the young Norwegian's newly acquired world title, his all-time No1 ranking and his growing legend of invincibility but also from his non-chess attributes as a cool and hunky sex symbol, a part-time male model and a fertile source of comparisons to Mozart, Justin Bieber or Harry Potter.
For all that, there are still critics who question whether Carlsen is truly in the same bracket as Bobby Fischer and Kasparov, the two established all-time greats. The reservations are based on Vishy Anand's poor form at Chennai, the luck which Carlsen had in the 2012 London candidates and the inflation in the rating system which has developed since the Fischer and Kasparov eras.
Most of all, the unease about Carlsen centres on his playing style, which is very different from the great classical masters of the past. Carlsen certainly knows plenty of hot theory when he needs it, but his preference is to play an objectively level position where his persistent pressure and superior fitness will count, particularly in a long and tiring endgame. In the old days they called it sitzfleisch. Anand's tame approach and his apparent fixation to take on the solid Berlin 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 meant that Carlsen's anti-theory plan was only really tested in game nine, He got away with it then, but Kasparov claimed that Anand had more dangerous ways to press home his fierce attack.

• Read the full article in the Guardian here

Faulty game plan for Team Anand?

Viswanathan Anand’s endgame
In Anand’s failure, there are shades of Federer’s failure to come up with a viable strategy against the first player to challenge him when he was at his peak
G. Sampath

Viswanathan Anand has accomplished everything that a chess player could possibly want to. He has been a five-time world champion and in three different formats. He was the undisputed world champion for six years. He has been the world number one, and also the single biggest reason for a chess renaissance in his country. And he has been a tremendous ambassador for the game, having played at the elite level for well over a quarter of a century. He simply has nothing left to prove.

But today, as he turns 44 in a couple of weeks, he’s no longer the world champion. Many doubt that he could win the next edition of the Candidates Tournament so as to be able to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world title in 2014. If his match play in the recently concluded world championship battle with Carlsen in Chennai is any indication, then Anand’s form is in clear decline. Grandmasters the world over have remarked how uncharacteristic were the blunders he made that eventually cost him the world title.

People have spoken of age as a factor in his downward slide. Another is his psychological vulnerability. Both these will be crucial when he sits down to figure out his future plans. Of course, there are tournaments he has already committed to, which he will play. But after having been the world champion for six years since 2007, to now compete with the next generation of players as one of the journeymen would be to embark on a laborious climb up a treacherous summit knowing full well that somebody younger, fitter, and stronger is waiting on top to shove you down immediately. It requires motivation and mental strength of an order of magnitude that was not in evidence during his title match with Carlsen which didn’t last the 12 games it was scheduled to.

The first clue that the champion was not at his prime any more was, of course, his strategy against the world number one. In his previous world title matches, Anand played to his strengths: his legendary opening repertoire and his supremacy in rapid chess. He played safe, and kept drawing games, knowing full well that if the scores were level at the end of the regular format, he could demolish the opponent in the tie-break or rapid games that would follow. Fully aware of this, and faced with draw after draw as the match progressed, his opponent would be forced to take more and more risks to force a victory and avoid a tie-break. In the process, in the later games, he would end up making mistakes, and play into Anand’s hands. This plan worked superbly against Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand. But it was never going to work against Carlsen. Yet Anand did not or could not move away from his tried and tested strategy.

So, rather than make his strengths count, by focusing on dictating the game through his superior opening preparations—which also happens to be the one area Carlsen could not match him—Anand chose to try and match Carlsen in end game wizardry. To his credit, he did manage to compete on an almost equal footing. But unfortunately he did not—and some would say, could not—have the staying power of someone two decades his junior.

The second problem Anand had was that Carlsen does not like to draw. He would rather play on and on for eternity in the expectation of squeezing out some advantage rather than settle for a draw. This meant that, from having to work hard for a win, Anand now found himself working hard for a draw—not exactly what you would expect of a world champion. And this is where the psychological battle was won by Carlsen. He has said as much in his many interviews—once he saw that the world champion was as nervous as he was, and playing conservative chess, the challenger knew he could relax and play his normal game, which he went on to do with devastating effect.

In Anand’s failure, there are shades of Roger Federer’s failure to come up with a viable strategy against the first player to challenge him when he was still at his peak—a younger, fitter and stronger Rafael Nadal. The only blemish in Federer’s glorious record is his failure to respond as a champion and stamp his superiority over Nadal. This failure, many would argue, has more to do with his mind than his game. Federer inevitably ended up playing to Nadal’s strengths—engaging in long rallies where the latter would eventually wear him out. Carlsen did the same to Anand. Just as Nadal kept the ball in play till the master committed an error, or ceded an opening for a winner, Carlsen kept moving the pieces around accurately till the champion made an error.

It was fairly evident that Anand’s safety-first approach was not going to take him very far. As Game 9 made clear, his only chance of beating Carlsen came when he played to his strengths—an all-out, blistering attack based on a strong opening preparation, and not letting go. It was a game he played like the “lightning kid” of yore, in the style his opponents feared and fans loved. He dominated, and he played fast and accurate chess—he was ahead of Carlsen on the clock for most of this game, up until the point where he spent 45 minutes over-analysing a move and blundered.

Anand lost that game—but it was also the closest he came to victory, and you cannot expect to be the world champion if you are not confident of going for a win every time. In almost all the earlier games, where Anand played safe, Carlsen comfortably equalized in the opening and middle games, and wore down the champion in the end game. Every time he lost, Anand basically succumbed to a combination of accurate play from Carlsen, exhaustion, and time pressure.

If instead, Anand had played attacking, high risk chess from Game 1, he might still have lost the title, but he would have played more like a champion than he did, and stood better chance of rattling his younger, less experienced opponent playing his first title match. Plus of course, it would have made for more scintillating chess.

It would be safe to say that if Anand chooses to continue playing competitive chess (Garry Kasparov retired at 41), then it can only be for the love of the game, for another world title would only make an incremental difference to his stature as one of the all time greats of the sport.

Given this, if he chooses to play on, he should consider reinventing his approach to the game; perhaps rediscover the fast and attacking style of play that distinguished the younger Anand. If he can manage that, one might even seen a second wind, where he might lose more but also win more. Besides, as the Federer-Nadal story showed us, there is no other way he can possibly compete with Carlsen, who, many say, is still some years away from his peak as a chess player.


Source: http://www.livemint.com

Magnus Carlsen opened Real Madrid match

World Champion Magnus Carlsen celebrated his 23rd birthday with 68,000 people at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium as he took a ceremonial kick-off in the La Liga match between Real Madrid and Valladolid.
Real Madrid CF President Florentino Pérez invited Carlsen to be the special guest of the match and presented him with a shirt and engraved watch as birthday gifts.
Realmadrid.com notes that Carlsen “received an ovation from the Bernabéu after winning the title by beating Viswanathan Anand, who is also a Real Madrid supporter”.
Real Madrid proceeded to beat Valladolid 4-0, with Gareth Bale scoring his first hat-trick in the club.
Watch the video on youtube

Magnus Carlsen ceremonial kick-off in the match Real Madrid-Valladolid

Florentino Pérez and Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen: "Definitely I’m the man to beat now!"

'I am the player to beat'
Manisha Mohite, Dec 1, 2013 :

Magnus Carlsen, the new world champion, says his title triumph is an apt reflection of the rankings.

Whether he has royal blood from the Magnus Kings who ruled Norway from the 11th to 14th century may be debatable but what is undeniable is the fact that the world chess crown fits his head, snugly, securely and unquestionably in the 21st century.

Magnus Carlsen, the sporty and sexy chess king — Cosmopolitan named him as one of the sexiest men of 2013 — passionately pursues physical sports like football, basketball, swimming and flaunts fashionable outfits.

Dubbed as ‘the Prince in waiting’ for the last three years, Carlsen’s the coronation was complete after he dethroned five-time champion Viswanathan Anand 6.5-3.5 in the World Chess Championship title match at Chennai.

His comments might border on the brash at times but he always displays a super sharp analytical mind. Carlsen, who celebrated his 23rd birthday on Saturday, spoke to the Indian media prior to his departure from Chennai. Excerpts from his interaction:

How do you look at your title triumph?

I am happy to win the title. Only last year I thought that I wanted to be a world champion and played in the Candidates. I had not given it much thought before. I just wanted to play chess and have fun, so in that sense it was not a childhood dream

Can you take us through the ten games you played in this match?

The first two games were tough as I was nervous and tense. I really settled in after the third game where Anand settled for a draw in an advantageous position. That was the time I realised he was also nervous and tense. The fourth game was the best one in terms of interest and quality as both of us played well. Game 5 and Game 6 were decent games which could have ended in draws. They were more about grinding him out than anything else but the trick in the sixth game (in the ending) was fun. I was in trouble in Game 9 but by then I had the cushion of two points. Last few nights I did not get much sleep because of the excitement. Second half of the match, I was in control of my nerves and managed to keep my composure.

What was your strategy against Anand?

I was aware that my openings may not be as good as Anand’s but the idea was to be smart always, to stay one step ahead of him. I managed to do that and in the second half, I managed to dictate play. I just wanted to come out of the openings without doing any harm to my position. My strategy was simple — to make 40 or 50 good moves and challenge Vishy to do the same. Vishy knew this was going to happen but it is difficult to play like this for a long time, keep concentrating and not make a mistake. Vishy was tired after four or five hours, I was not!

So you think age factor had a say on the match, with Anand being 21 years older?

Partly maybe. Every strong player makes mistakes when put under pressure regardless of his age. That is what Anand did. That is what players have done in the past. As for me, age-wise I might be young but chess wise I have played a lot. I first played Anand when I was 14 years old.

You have assisted Anand in World Championship matches against Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. What insights did you gain that time?

To be honest, I've learnt a lot from him in the past, both playing against him and especially while training with him. Just the kind of positions that he understands, the way he would just outplay me like no one else did in certain kinds of positions. Also the precision with which he analyses games and positions has been an eye-opener. In this match I showed him in a way that although he has taught me many things in the past, it's probably now my turn to teach him. So, it's safe to say I've surpassed him now.

What are your views on the Candidates’ tournament in March 2014?

I think Vladimir Kramnik and Aronian will be the favourites. Vishy will firstly have to figure it out if he would want to play in the Candidates. Although he is an all-time great player, his results lately have not been too good and he will need some time to readjust to be able to come back. It all depends on him now. He needs to figure some things out and if he manages to keep his motivation after this match, he will still be a force to reckon with. Right now though I don’t think he is the biggest favourite at the Candidates.
 
You have been compared to the legendary Bobby Fischer...

Fischer always kept his opponents under pressure. In that sense I can be compared to him as I definitely like to play relentlessly, put more and more pressure on the opponent. Yeah I think my opponents are not used to fighting every game till the very end.
 
Who is your favourite player and also the game that impressed you most...

There are many players that I admire and I try to learn from all the great masters but I have never had a favourite player, past or present. I have learned from so many games that I have seen but cannot single out either a player or a game. I am more interested in the games than the people.

You are a popular figure in Norway...

Earlier, I would know all the people from the chess environment but now when I go out, people on the streets walk up to me — these are people who I have not met in my life but they follow all the top tournaments that I play. More kids are interested to learn the game now. When I was in school, during breaks lot of kids wanted to play chess till a certain age when it was not supposed to be cool. Then they wanted to do other things.

As the world champion, what do you think are your responsibilities?

I think marketing is the main issue with chess and I think there is potential. It is just about making it exciting and yet preserving the qualities that make it special. In that sense, presentation is important and we will see how to work that out. I have to play well and be a positive figure. I would be participating in many tournaments and do the things which I did before. It is important to show as a world champion that you are the best player in the world and this has not happened for a long time. I am quite ahead in the world rankings and am also the world champion, so definitely I’m the man to beat now!

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com

Heir India: No Pretenders to the King's Throne

Viswanathan Anand - India's undisputed Chess King

When Magnus Carlsen played his last move in the final game of the World Chess Championships, it not only ended Viswananthan Anand’s six-year hegemony on the world title, but also burst the balloon that chess fans in the country had existed in for more than two decades.
It brought about a sudden realisation that the man who had become synonymous with Indian chess was in the twilight of his career and raised a very disturbing question – what next?The answer is even more disconcerting. As Anand prepares for what are likely the final few moves of his illustrious career, there is no visible successor to replace him at the top.
The second best Indian player Pentala Harikrishna is ranked 42nd in the world while Parimarjan Negi is next at 77th. Neither looks like qualifying for even a Candidates Tournament any time soon.Harikrishna started off like Anand, becoming the world junior champion in 2004, but has since been unable to keep pace with his compatriot. Hari is 27, an age by which Anand had already taken on (and lost against) Garry Kasparov atop the World Trade Centre for the classical title.
But GM RB Ramesh feels such a comparison is unfair. “Anand belonged to a different era. When he was making his way to the top, he had to get past only a few players. If Hari had started out then, he would have been in the top ten as well. You can’t compare different eras. Rating wise, Hari is currently stronger than Alexander Alekhine. If he had played back then he would have been world champion.”
But Ramesh also concedes that both Hari and Negi have not been able to keep up with some other players of their generation. “It is not about quality. Indian players struggle with their ratings because they hardly get to play in closed tournaments. If you play in closed tournaments, you only play against opponents who are either as good as, or better than you are, rating wise. But in open tournaments, you can come up against a lot of lower ranked players. It is like a college student taking their eight standard exams over and over again. It is pointless. If you look at players like Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, they only play in closed tournaments. But Harikrishna only gets to play in open tournaments, which hardly helps with his ratings.”
        >>World Chess Championship
The gulf between the resources available to Indian and Western-based players is evident in the case of Negi. In 2006, Negi became the world’s second youngest Grandmaster at 13, surpassing the record set by Carlsen. An year later, Caruana, a few months older than Negi, achieved his final GM norm. Within the next two years, Caruana had played in a number of closed tournaments and had taken on some of the top players in the world including Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Vassily Ivanchuk, Levon Aronian and Anatoly Karpov. Now Caruana is seventh in the world. Negi, who once had the faster rising graph, is 70 places behind.
“It took time for me to adjust to the limelight. I was not ready to cope with the demands of playing at that level. I did stagnate for a couple of years. Like Carlsen, I became a Grandmaster at 13, but I have not been able to improve at the pace he has done. But that being said, players in India are not getting the same opportunities as those elsewhere. Me or Hari would have got more opportunities to play against the top level players, had we been in Europe or the US. Even Anand moved to Spain,” says Negi.
He feels that chess authorities would do well to organise a few world class tournaments. “The top tournaments there are invitational. And we don’t get many invites to play in these. Playing in India, you don’t get the same level of opposition. You have Hari, myself, Sasikiran and a couple of others, so it is a very select group. If the sponsors were to come forward and commit to tournaments involving top stars, then that would be good not just for me or Hari, but for the younger players who would get the opportunity to test themselves against some very good players.”
As far as who the next Indian to challenge for a world championship, Negi says it is hard to tell who that man will be or when it will happen. “As of now, none of us are close to reaching that level and for me, personally, there is a long way to go. But hopefully in the future I’ll make it.”
But All India Chess Federation secretary DV Sundar maintains that bringing top players here is unrealistic given the lack of sponsors for the game in the country. “Such tournaments require a lot of money but unfortunately we do not have sponsors who will pump in that kind of funds into chess. So it is difficult to host such kind of tournaments here. But we host 7-8 tournaments every year and the players should focus on that.”

Anand: "I wasn't expecting him (Carlsen) to be a gracious:

Magnus Carlsen package too much for me, Viswanathan Anand says
Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN | Dec 1, 2013, 01.38 AM IST

It hurts. Viswanathan Anand sounds cheerful enough, but occasionally the pain comes through. India's five-time world champion has just been vanquished by the Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen, who came to the lion's den and tamed the reigning king.

A title scrap that was to last 12 rounds with the first person to reach 6.5 points (one point for a win and half for draw) was over in 10 rounds as Carlsen won three games and drew seven, in what was a crushing win, if not a rout of sorts. All of Anand's plans and preparations came unstuck, a fact he mournfully admits.

But it's not the end of the world, says the man who won an unprecedented five titles in different formats in different countries and different conditions - everywhere except his home country, the birthplace of chess.

He did not have to be choreographed into a goodbye and heralded out with a Bharat Ratna, which he truly is. When the wounds heal, he still has it in him to take a crack at winning back the title, although he is not thinking too far ahead - in fact, not thinking beyond playing with his 30-month-old son Akhil, his best healing agent.

In this conversation with Chidanand Rajghatta, Anand reviews the just concluded title fight that ended in disaster. Excerpts:

Let's talk about the preparations and the conditions. Were they ideal? Do you feel you played at 100 per cent?

I felt I had I worked hard enough and I felt confident I had done the right kind of work and the right amount of work. But when you talk of preparations, the measure of success is whether it works or not. In that area, I failed completely. I did not stay the course. When you hit the right spot, the sweet spot, it feels great and you feel the preparations have been ideal, but I never got there.

Was playing in your home country, your home town a distraction? Everyone talked of whether it was an advantage.

It really didn't matter in that sense. Once the games began I switched off such things, and no, I can't say there were any distractions.

Did you prepare differently for Magnus? He had helped you in your last title fight, so how much is it a disadvantage in chess if someone has worked with you and prepared with you previously?

It's always hard to quantify these things. It's true he had some level of familiarity with my games and my thinking. But there is no reason why it should work only one way. It cuts both ways. I knew his game too. So I don't think that's a good excuse. The fact is he outplayed me. He just proved to be stronger.

So what went wrong?

Well, I actually began well and felt things were going reasonably well after the fourth game (the first four were drawn). In Game Five I couldn't quite concentrate... I felt things were quite choppy. It was hard to get a good position and I felt myself falling behind. I made small, incremental mistakes and was always catching up (he resigned on the 57th move).

And then there was that disastrous Game 6 (in which he resigned on the 68th move)... Yes. At that time I felt I had given him a lead for nothing in Game Five. Then I had to take risks and come back, but the level of my play dipped...

By this time one noticed Magnus' enormous depth. He was grinding you down, pushing you to 60, 70 moves in games that lasted hours and hours. Surely you knew this and prepared for this?

Magnus has many good qualities... he is very versatile and he can play a lot of positions at a very high level. He's also very flexible. And he has this amazing talent for grinding on, as you say. So that combination I was unable to deal with.

You were happy with your seconds? And the technology available to you?

Oh yeah, they all worked very hard, but at the end of the day they cannot come in and play for you. The technology is pretty much the same for everyone these days, although we didn't compare notes with Magnus this time. Look, the fact is I felt I prepared well and felt I brought my strength to the match, but on the board it went away very fast. Magnus' biggest strength, the ability to go on and on, is what ten years back I used to consider my biggest weakness but I thought I had prepared for that. It is very hard to recreate the match atmosphere at home. I simply underestimated how it would work at the chessboard. It just slipped away from me very fast. In this match, Magnus was superior. Let's just admit it.

That's very generous of you Anand. What do you make of Magnus saying he is now in a position to teach you?

(Chuckles) I wasn't expecting him to be a gracious, so fair enough. The winner can say anything when he wins... so I guess we will just have to swallow it for now.

He's only 22, how much better you think can he get?

It seems ridiculous for me to suggest where he might go. He is very very good. And he knows what he has to do.

So are you up to taking a crack at him to regain the title? Would you have the confidence?

Of course, one has to understand that he is very, very good, but you have to have the confidence to take him on. You have to believe in yourself. If you get a shot at the world championship, you take it. It's not something you can analyse too much. But that's a long way away and there are qualifiers before that. Right now I'm just looking forward to rest a bit and let the wounds heal. I've been playing a lot with Akhil (his son) so that's cheering me up a lot.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Exclusive Interview With Magnus Carlsen

National Treasure of India

Anand is to chess just as what Tendulkar is to cricket and Dhyan Chand is to hockey
Friday, 29 November 2013 09:55

Viswanathan Anand was dethroned by Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship last week which ended his reign as the World Champion. However, the defeat does not mean Anand is a finished force as he has vowed to come back stronger. Over the years he has proved time and again that action speak louder than words. He is single-handedly responsible for popularising chess in the country. Anand is to Indian chess just as what Sachin Tendulkar is to cricket and Dhyan Chand is to hockey.

Here are few reasons as to what made him one of the best sportspersons of the country and the World.

Consistency: Anand has been one of the most consistent sportspersons of the World. He first won the World Chess Championship in the year 2000, but could be crowned as the undisputed World Champion as Kramnik held the Classical World Championship. In the year 2007, when both the titles were unified, he won the double round robin tournament to be established as the undisputed champion of chess, first player to win the title in a tournament rather than a matchplay since Mikhail Botvinnik in 1948. After than there was no stopping him and since then he has defended his title thrice.

Resiliency: He has shown enough resilience in his career to establish himself at the place where he is today. Before going into his World Championship with Gelfand, chess critics wrote him off and said that Anand-Era is over. But he never let those affect his mental frame of mind and decided to let his game do the talking. He lost tournaments that he should have won, was not in best of forms which let everyone tag Gelfand as a favourite. Stakes were high, but then Anand showed that why is he a four times World Champion. He held on to his ground, defended the title and shunned all his critics.

Versatility: This is one of the pre-requisites of a champion. All the sportspersons in the World have to be versatile to be able to perform consistently and Anand is no exception to that. Anand is the only player to have won the world chess championships various formats such as tournament, match, rapid, and knockout chess and this fact has prompted his fellow chess players see him as the most versatile champion ever.

Down to Earth: As a champion, fame is bound to come. But then it is a huge task for any sportspersons that they should not get carried away by it. Anand has been in limelight more than two decades now and despite that he kept his feet grounded. And this is one reason why he has been able to perform so consistently and not lose his focus.

Champion in truest sense: He has not only been a champion in the game but also off it. He has been a real life hero and example to that is when in 2010 he had to go to Bulgaria for his Championship match against Veselin, his flight got delayed due to volcanic ash. He asked the organizers to delay the start but they didn’t citing TV rights issue. Anand a champion that he is drove for 40 hours to reach the venue. He was exhausted but he did not let that affect his game and he rightfully defended his World title.

By Indian Sports News Network

Source: http://www.indiansportsnews.com

Viswanathan Anand quashes retirement talk

A victim of his own hubris?:Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand: A victim of his own hubris?
28 Nov, 2013, 04.00AM IST
By Sumit Chakraberty

On hindsight, it seems apparent that Viswanathan Anand should have taken more of an initiative at the very outset of his world championship match with Magnus Carlsen in Chennai. He quickly forced a draw with black pieces in the first game, and then opted for a queen exchange and another quick draw when Carlsen surprised him with the Caro Kann defence in the second game. Even in the third game, which seemed to be developing into the sort of complexity in the middle that Anand relishes, he chose a risk-free line when a pawn sacrifice was offered.

Carlsen appeared uncharacteristically vulnerable in that first quarter of the championship. But Anand could not pounce on that unexpected vulnerability, because his own strategy was to put safety first, and avoid risks. In fact, from game four onwards, he seemed quite willing to be drawn into long end games, which is known to be Carlsen's strength.

A five-time world champion does not play like that, especially at the start of a championship, unless that is what he had planned. Even at the end, after everything had gone horribly wrong, Anand never admitted that his risk-free strategy was wrong; he only said he had failed in its execution. So what could Anand have been thinking?

Carlsen is not too hot on opening theory, nor does he set much store by complicated middle games with too many pieces. His preferred route to a kill is an endgame that stretches for hours until his victim succumbs to relentless pressure or makes a mistake out of sheer mental exhaustion.

But what if somebody as good as Anand could withstand that pressure and not make mistakes in endgame after endgame? Would it then be Carlsen who would eventually get frustrated and crack, or be forced to try a different tack where he is less sure of himself ? For somebody who has been world champion for so many years, it is natural to back oneself to concentrate and play error-free chess, especially in the simplified positions of an endgame, however long it stretched. Why should the world champion be the one to open himself to counterattack by risky play in the middle game, while the challenger sat back and played solid, safe chess?

Ultimately, Anand was a victim of this self-belief. He did not take his age or fitness into account. He also discounted his erratic play in the last year or so, and Carlsen's immaculate record for over two years during which he was rated the No.1 player in the world. If he had factored all that in, he would have happily risked going into uncharted territory in the middle game when Carlsen deliberately made sub-optimal moves to disturb Anand's prepared lines of play. In fact, he came close to beating Carlsen only in Game 9 when he went on a risky all-out attack in desperation.

Anand may still have lost if he had taken more risks from the beginning, but at least his strategy would have reflected selfawareness, rather than being in denial about the reality of his own age and his rival's No.1 status. The deposed champion has won hearts over the years with his humility, but may have succumbed to his own hubris in the end.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Carlsen: I will be the man to beat for sometime

I will be the man to beat, warns Carlsen
By Venkata Krishna B | ENS - CHENNAI
Published: 26th November 2013 12:44 AM
Last Updated: 26th November 2013 02:19 AM

It was not his tactics or gameplan that helped Magnus Carlsen become the new king of chess. It was the long walks at Semmozhi Park, spending quality time with his family at Fisherman’s Cove, kicking up dust while playing football and basketball at Santhome School – all part of his relaxing strategy that brought him laurels.

Speaking to the media on Monday after the closing ceremony which saw him officially crowned as new world champion, Carlsen said he had to calm his nerves after the first two rounds to strangle five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who was under pressure.

“At the start I was nervous because of the pressure of playing in the World Chess Championship. But after that I calmed down and treated it like just another tournament and did what I do usually to relax – to do some sports and movies in between. I also made it a point not to be tensed and think about the results and focused on what was there in front,” he said. [Watch video]

Carlsen, who is ranked number one in the world, said the title has reduced the burden of expectations and he will look to consolidate his position at the top for long, “I’ve been ranked number one for sometime and it was always a little burden that I didn’t win the World Championship and now that I have that, I can relax a bit and play the way I’ve been playing so far. I have a quite a lead with the world No 1 tag and the World Championship, so I will be the man to beat for sometime,” he said with confidence.

The Norwegian credited his family, especially his father, for his success and added he is already looking forward to the next World Championship, which will be held in November 2014. “One of the reasons why I have not revealed my seconds, who did a remarkable job during the course of the match, is they will be involved in my preparation for the title defense next year and I don’t want to hamper my preparations,” he said.
 
Full article here.

Carlsen: Now it’s probably my turn to teach him

I don’t think Anand is favourite to become the challenger: Magnus Carlsen
New world chess champion Magnus Carlsen says he is now ‘the man to beat’
Arundhati Ramanathan

Chennai: He became the world chess champion only three days ago, but Magnus Carlsen already has his eyes on defending the title next year.

The 22-year-old Norwegian wouldn’t reveal the identity of the players he trained with for his just-concluded match against Viswanathan Anand because the same team is likely going to assist him next year. Knowing who they are could help his opponent second-guess the way he would prepare.

For Anand, the world champion for six years till he lost the crown on Friday, it’s been a “heavy blow” as he himself put it, and it is not clear immediately whether he will ever play in the world championship again.

“He is very disappointed… He made mistakes (in this match) that he never used to make earlier,” said Eric van Reem, one of Anand’s managers.

Asked if he would play in the so-called candidates tournament, which will determine the challenger to Carlsen’s title, Reem said Anand, 43, hadn’t decided on it. Age is running out on him, and the difficulty will only increase with time. “He has played five (world) championships in the last six years and that drains a lot of energy,” Reem added.

Shortly after he received a 3.5kg gold-plated silver trophy, a gold medal and cash prize of Rs.9.9 crore from Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, Carlsen agreed to be interviewed by a small group of Indian journalists. Without mincing words, he said he is now “the man to beat”, and he didn’t consider Anand as the likely challenger to his title, looking at his recent performance. Edited excerpts:

Coming into the finals, did the close shave you had at the candidates’ tournament at all bother you?

I stopped thinking about it. Obviously the candidates’ tournament was a close call. It was very tiring and very exciting as well. But when I reached the final, I put everything behind and focused on what was happening in the final and not on how I got to it.

What did you have in mind when you were preparing for this match?

My main objective was to get playable positions—not to come under any great pressure from the beginning. I think I managed to equalize games from the opening, especially with black pieces, and outplay Anand, or at least pressure him in the rest of the games.

Did the match turn out to be easier than you had expected?

The match was difficult in the beginning because, for instance, in the first game, Vishy came up with a novelty in a really obscure line of play. When I analysed the game later, I was very impressed with the things that he had considered and how fast he was thinking. I was thinking to myself, if he was going to play this way, how am I going to ever catch him off-guard. But fortunately, it turned out that he, too, was a bit nervous.

Besides your preparation, what helped you clinch the title?

It helped me to stay relaxed during the match and treat it like any other tournament. I did what I usually do. To stay relaxed, I like to take part in other sports, watch movies in between games, and not think about the result all the time.

Does becoming the world champion make you anxious?

Not really. I’ve been the No. 1 (by rating) for some time, but it has always been a bit of burden on me that I did not have the world title. Now that I have it, I can relax a little bit and do what I do best.

Do you plan to go back to university?

For now, I am happy playing chess.

You have named some players as potential challengers to your world title, but not Anand. What are your thoughts about his future as a chess player?

First of all, he’ll have to figure out if he wants to play in the candidates’ tournament. His results lately have not been too good. He’ll need some time to readjust. If he is able to play at his highest level, I think he can come back, but right now I don’t think he is the favourite to become the challenger.

So do you think Anand’s era of chess is over?

I think it all depends on his motivation. He’ll have to figure a lot of things out. If he manages to keep his motivation after this match, he’ll be a force to reckon with.

Why have you refused to name your seconds even after winning the world title?

I am already thinking about defending the title and that is the reason why I don’t want to talk about my seconds too much, because they would be part of my team going forward.

Chess appears to have got a huge fillip in Norway.

What we’ve seen in Norway is (that) an amazing number of people who did not play chess previously are now following chess—playing the game in schools and at work, and discussing it all the time.

Who do you owe this title to?

I think I owe it to everyone: my seconds (players who assisted), my team, my family, and especially my father. My team has attended to every need and every request however unreasonable it might have been.

Is there anything at all that you have learnt from this match or Anand?

To be honest, I think I’ve learnt a great deal from him in the past, both by playing against him and training with him. Previously, he could outplay me in certain positions, and he could do that in ways that no else could. But I think I showed him in a way that although he has taught me many things in the past, now it’s probably my turn to teach him.


Source: http://www.livemint.com

The making of magnificent Magnus

Champions are nurtured… Teenager Magnus plays Viswanathan Anand in 2005.

The flexible Norwegian schooling system enabled Carlsen to pursue his dream to excel at chess.

Never in history has India attracted as much attention in Norway as in the last few weeks.

Magnus Carlsen’s challenge to Vishwanathan Anand for the 2013 FIDE world title in Chennai made the Norwegian media inquisitive about India.

The countries have little in common culturally or historically. But now, the normally shy and self-restrained Norwegians found themselves spontaneously chatting with people of Indian origin and asking about Anand and his country’s 1500-year-old chess heritage. For many Norwegians, the big championship triumph of their little grandmaster is like the victory of David over Goliath.

In India, it is widely perceived that the great one-man Indian epoch in world chess has lost the battle to an ‘incarnated’ wonder boy in an unlucky streak. All this, however, overlooks some of the crucial reasons behind the rise of Magnus Carslen.

No chess culture

Chess has never been a popular sport in Norway. The recent fever is unprecedented and can very well be traced to the advent of Carlsen.

How can Norway, with a population less than that of a medium-sized district in India, produce the world champion?

To say he is a prodigy who just happened to be born in Norway is too simple an explanation.

The mastery that Carlsen has over the game can only be achieved by careful nurturing of a genius in the right environment. Chess, beyond doubt, is primarily a game of ingenious minds. Nevertheless such gifted minds need to be ‘discovered’ and sharpened by appropriate training through collective effort.

The emergence of a FIDE world champion from Norway, a no man’s land on the chess map, is altogether different from the rise of an array of rigorously trained chess talents in the former USSR.

The Soviet regime had systematically produced world-class chess players to embark on a well-defined propaganda that the Communist system provides the right environment for best minds to flourish.

Seeing chess as a form of politics rather than a sport, the Soviet government provided generous support for the promotion of chess among the masses.

That made chess a popular sport during the Soviet regime. It was common to see gamblers in various cities in the USSR sitting with a chessboard, playing for money.

Carlsen was not born into such an environment, nor were there chess players of international repute in Norway to train him.

What contributed heavily to his emergence as a topnotch chess player was the Norwegian schooling system. As his father has pointed out, “Chess is not a popular sport in Norway” but “our education system was flexible enough to give a leeway for sports”. The Norwegian education system is lenient; it does not unnecessarily burden the child with too many tests and too much grading.

The primary years are focused on developing social skills and learning about nature and the society in which they live.

Children who have a particular interest or talent are allowed to follow their path. Therefore, the system did not interfere when Carlsen decided to skip classes in order to get his chess training.

He was even given a year off from elementary school to focus on chess tournaments.

Need to nurture

Indian schools rarely allow their students such flexibility. But there have been some changes, with Tamil Nadu and Gujarat allowing chess to be part of the curriculum.

Even minor reforms like this have resulted in tremendous changes.

For instance, India recently overtook Russia and France in having the highest number of FIDE-rated players. Forty years ago, there was just one.

In a competitive world, potential talents must be identified and nurtured early to achieve anything significant. As Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers notes, “Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert — in anything.”

This means four hours every day for eight years — possible only in a flexible education system that lets an exceptional child choose untraditional educational path, whether it is chess or cricket.

According to his father, Magnus Carlsen had devoted more than 10,000 hours to chess before the age of 15.

The new FIDE world champion is, therefore, a living example of how an education system keen on developing individual talents can do wonders.

(Thomas is a social anthropologist at the University of Bergen, Norway. Idicula is a consultant neurologist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Source: www.thehindubusinessline.com

Carlsen Crowned World Champion

World No.1 ranked Magnus Carlsen of Norway was formally crowned the World Chess Champion at a glittering, brief awarding ceremony in Chennai.
He was presented a dazzling gold trophy, cheque and the crown by the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms J Jayalalithaa at the Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the heart of Chennai.
The Chief Miniter of Tamil Nadu, Ms J Jayalalithaa presented symbolic cheques for Rs.9.90 Crores to Magnus Carlsen and Rs.6.03 Crores to Viswanathan Anand at the prize giving ceremony of the FIDE World Chess Championship that came to a close today.
She handed over the crown made from olive leaves in the Nilgris mountains in Tamil Nadu to the FIDE President who did the crowning.

The closing ceremony had no speeches, only background announcements in Tamil and English. After the traditional ‘Tamil Thaivazlthu’ was played, the FIDE anthem followed by the awarding of silver medals for Viswanathan Anand by the FIDE President.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand who had checked out of the Presidential Suite on Saturday morning came directly from his home and left after the ceremony. The ceremony lasted 15 minutes and started a few minutes ahead of the scheduled time.
Anand was dressed formally in tie and jacket and Carlsen had his jacket on. The venue was the same hall in which the ten games were played.
Over 500 people attended the crowded ceremony which also witnessed huge security personnel both inside and outside the hotel.

All India Chess Federation, President, J.C.D. Prabhakar, offered flowers to welcome the Chief Minister Ms J. Jayalalitha. Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, President, P.R. Venketrama Raja offered flowers to welcome Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Tamil Nadu Government Chief Secretary Sheela Balakrishnan was welcomed with flowers by Principal Secretary in Youth Affairs and Sports department.
This event, which saw a western player win the world chess title for the first time since 1972 gained the maximum publicity for chess, both in terms of television and internet viewership.
Carlsen became the 20th player ever in the history of world chess since 1886 to be crowned champion. Norwegian presence was large and many were singing the Norwegian anthem at the top of their voices.
The ‘Ultimate’ world chess championship that ran from November 7-25 at Chennai was organised in a spectacular manner by the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms J Jayalalithaa sponsored a massive sum of Rs.29 Crores and making for this event in India possible.
The All India Chess Federation President J.C.D. Prabhakar and FIDE Vice President D.V. Sundar made sure this event was brought here and organised smoothly.
All India Chess Federation Press Release November 25, 2013.
All the game and free day reports, transcripts from game three till the end were prepared by Arvind Aaron, AICF Press Officer.
The photos were taken by Mahesh, who contributes to Tamil Nadu State Chess Association at all ceremonies and functions.
Transcripts to the first few games were done by R.R. Vasudevan.
All photos attached to this file are taken by Anastasia Karlovich, FIDE Press Officer
Official website was hosted by FIDE and maintained by Chessdom.com

 

Exclusive 1st interview with World Champion Magnus Carlsen

A closing and opening day for World Chess Championships Reply!

Another day of media battles begins, as two ceremonies coincide (photo by Paul Truong)

The closing ceremony of the FIDE World Chess Championship in Chennai is going to start at 12:00 local time today. It will be held at the Ball Room of Hotel Hyatt Regency, with the presence of the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu Ms. J Jayalalithaa and the FIDE President Mr Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The ceremony will mark the end of the possibly the most viewed World Chess Championship in history (expect fascinating statistics) by distributing a hefty prize fund of 2,55 million USD.
The closing ceremony will be with live video and commentary and you can follow it at the official website.
The same day the Anand – Carlsen World Championship match comes officially to an end, another World Championship battle starts. Today at 15:00 local time (14:00 CET) the World Chess Team Championship (see team compositions here) will be inaugurated.