Nigel Short: World comes around in a year
When the Candidates (the FIDE qualification tournament for this year’s
championship) took place in Khanty-Mansiysk, in darkest Siberia, this March,
few, if any, commentators gave [the former World Champion] much hope. They
were very wrong. Unburdened by the weight of expectation, the rejuvenated
Anand eased to a convincing triumph. There was nothing fortuitous about
Anand’s sublime performance in Russia. If anything, he could have
scored more points. It was as though all his cares and worries, which had
inhibited his form for an aeon, had vanished. Therein lies Anand’s
best, and perhaps only, chance: if he is to regain the throne, he must liberate
his mind completely. He must accept that he has nothing to lose and everything
to gain. He must be undaunted by adversity and attack his opponent boldly,
without compromise. This is not, I hasten to emphasise, to advocate a kamikaze
approach. One may begin a game innocuously, but there often comes a moment
when a player can choose to intensify the pressure or take a calmer, safer
option. In those situations, Anand must ratchet up the tension. He must
let his opponent smell and fear the symbolic death of defeat.
Magnus Carlsen, on the other hand, has had a slightly disappointing year
by his own lofty standards — although, by no small consolation, he
did win both the Rapid and Blitz World Championships. In contrast to recent
history, 2014 has been dominated by Fabiano Caruana. The 22 year-old Italian’s
astonishing 7/7 start, against the world elite at Sinquefield Cup in Saint
Louis, Missouri, had even Garry Kasparov gasping in admiration. From a sporting
perspective, the match promises to be closer than the one-sided drubbing
of last year. If forced to pick a winner though, I’ll stick with Carlsen.
– Read
the full article in the Indian Express.
Nigel Short: Magnus Carlsen has just one advantage
Chess rematches have their own characteristics, being psychologically
difficult, in particular, for the previous winner. As Garry Kasparov, the
Russian grandmaster who had five epic duels with Anatoly Karpov, said this
week, it is almost impossible to escape the negative emotion of “Why
the hell am I playing this guy again?” Anand will be encouraged by
the precedent of the Soviet chess patriarch, Mikhail Botvinnik, who although
well into middle age, twice won return matches by cunningly exploiting the
disorientation of his opponent. Carlsen is well aware of this potential
danger. His standards have slipped a little in 2014. Chess experts think
that Anand, at his advanced age, must understand he has nothing to lose
and sharpen the struggle rather than engaging in the lengthy, subtle manoeuvring
where Carlsen excels. Almost every change since the rout of 2013 has been
to Anand’s benefit – which is why it is likely to prove a much
tighter contest. As Kasparov says, Carlsen just has one advantage –
he is the better player. – Read
the full article at the Financial Times (requires registration).
Since dethroning Anand last November in Chennai and going on to reach the
highest ever rating of 2882 — surpassing Garry Kasparov’s high
of 2851 that stood for 13 years — Carlsen has lost five times this
year. Defeats to Germany’s Arkadij Naiditsch and little-known Ivan
Saric of Croatia in the Olympiad showed that even this 23-year-old was not
immune to fatigue. In the Sinquefield Cup that followed Carlsen suffered
his second defeat to Caruana this year. Softened up by these reverses, Carlsen
will either come very hard at Anand in Sochi over the next three weeks or
be less aggressive owing to the silently creeping self-doubt.
Though Carlsen has not lost to Anand since December 2010 in the classical
time format, and dominated the Indian in their last world title clash, his
game in recent times appears far from intimidating. More often than not,
Carlsen’s strong defence saves him from the slightly inferior positions
he tends to get into while heading for the middle-game. Give Carlsen an
equal middle-game position and watch him enhance his winning possibilities.
Being from the ‘computer generation’, the young champion possesses
amazing end-game skills that set him apart. However, in the past six months,
he has found it increasingly difficult to ‘grind’ his opponents,
as is his wont. More players are opting for opening lines that lead to dynamic
possibilities instead of the ‘dry’ positions that Carlsen so
loves to pursue. Though good at playing any opening, Carlsen’s strength
lies in the ability to get his kind of position in the middle-game. He tries
patiently, but relentlessly, to win from an equal position. – Read
the full article in The Hindu.
This Polgar Sees Outside Edge for Anand in Sochi
Nerves may not be something that one would usually attributes to
Carlsen, but it is precisely what former women’s champion Susan Polgar
believes Anand has to exploit to regain his title. “In this match,
it will all come down to if Anand can capitalise on any of Carlsen’s
shaky moments. Anand had that opportunity in the first few games in Chennai
but failed to do it. Once the young challenger got his nerves settled, he
was unstoppable. If Anand can score first in this match then anything can
happen. ... I think Anand will have a better chance this time. However,
Carlsen is still the slight favourite. He is younger and in his prime. But
it is silly for anyone to count Anand out." – Read
the full article in the Indian Express.
Abhijeet Gupta: Carlsen-Anand will be much closer than the last
time
Anand, who qualified for the rematch by surprisingly winning candidates'
tournament earlier this year, backed his performance in the qualifier by
winning the Bilbao Final Masters too and seems to be in fine nick ahead
of the clash. Carlsen, on the other hand, has not had the best of times
recently. "If you take the games of Sinquefield Cup into account, Carlsen
was not playing too well. Now we know he is not someone who likes to hide
any special preparation which in fact means he was in below par form,"
said grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta reflecting his thoughts on Carlsen's last
big tournament. "On the other hand, Anand has been at the top of his
game with a few expected ups and downs. He won the Bilbao even though his
last round loss might have been disappointing and he was clearly the best
player in the Candidate's tournament, where everyone made more mistakes
than him." Soon after Anand's victory at the Candidate's former world
champion Garry Kasparov had tweeted: "Anand will be underdog to Carlsen,
clearly. But chess history has shown rematches have their own dynamics.
Rarely a repeat of first". – Read
the full article in ISBN Live.
“Good Luck Vishy! Conveying my best wishes to our pride, Viswanathan
Anand for t
he World Chess Championship in Sochi.” Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.
Oliver Roeder: Magnus Carlsen Is More Than An Odds-On Favorite
FiveThirtyEight is a polling
aggregation website with a blog created by analyst Nate Silver. In became
a licensed feature of The New York Times online in 2010 and taken
over by ESPN in March 2014. Since 2008 the site has published articles –
typically creating or analyzing statistical information – on a wide
variety of topics in current politics and political news. These included
a monthly update on the prospects for turnover in the U.S. Senate; federal
economic policies; congressional support for legislation; public support
for health care reform, global warming legislation, gay rights; elections
around the world; marijuana legalization; and numerous other topics. The
site and its creator are best known for election forecasts, including the
2012 presidential election in which FiveThirtyEight correctly predicted
the vote winner of all 50 states. – More at Wikipedia.
Oliver Roeder, a senior writer for FiveThirtyEight and the economics fellow
at the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice,
has used the statistical methods that have worked so successfully in predicting
results in other sporting events – and in US elections – to
analyse the chances of both players in Sochi. He begins by reminding us
that Anand, the world's No. 6, became a grandmaster two years before Carlsen
was born. This is how their ratings compared since Magnus, still a pre-teen,
started playing internationally:
Roeder focusses his predictions on the propensity of top
players to draw their games. Anand and Carlsen have a 70% draw rate.
He ran 100,000 simulations each of the championship match, assuming a number
of values for draw prevalence. His conclusion: "The more likely draws
are in this match, the better Carlsen’s chances to defend his crown.
If draws are expected a quarter of the time, say, Carlsen has about an 80
percent chance to win the match. If they’re expected half the time:
an 85 percent chance. Three-quarters of the time: nearly 95 percent."
The reasoning for these conclusions are given the the article to which we
link below. The betting market, we are told, may be underestimating Carlsen’s
chances.
Incidentally few other top players would have a better chance against Carlsen.
Roeder ran the same simulations pitting Carlsen against each of the other
top ten players in the world. With the exception of Fabiano Caruana, the
22-year-old Italian, Carlsen would have a better than 80 percent chance
against anyone in the world:
Roeder concedes that all these estimates take the players’ Elo ratings
and the Elo system itself at face value. But: "an Elo rating is necessarily
only an estimate of a player’s true average skill, based on actual
game outcomes, and the system itself makes statistical assumptions. And
there may be 'intangibles' at play, too: how the contestants’ styles
of play clash, Carlsen’s discomfort with the match arrangements, or
a bitter taste left in Anand’s mouth by last year’s match, for
example. My simulations are agnostic about those." – Read
the full article at FiveThirtyEight here.
