The great laugh line of the Game 5 post-game press conference came in response to the question of who were the competitors' favourite players of the past. Carlsen said "probably myself like three or four years ago", which sounds more egotistical than it was likely intended.
Grandmaster Ian Rogers asked, tongue-in-cheek, whether Magnus would be able to "emulate his idol" (i.e. himself), and he replied, "no — he won his first game and game five of the World Championship, so that ship has sailed".
Carlsen won his first game with the white pieces in Sochi, 2014, and his first win in the 2013 Chennai match came in the fifth game. Of course, his opponent in both those matches was the 15th undisputed World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. Coming off a stellar blitz performance in Kolkata (more on that later), Anand agreed to annotate Game 5 for the forthcoming issue of ChessBase Magazine.
On the 'videogate' incident before Game 4, Anand says:
"There's nothing that dramatic that they gave away, except that you confirm that you're looking at the Petroff. On the other hand, this is completely useless information, if the Carlsen team — even if they felt that it's authentic — would they trust it, would the bet their life on it? They can't. I think both sides cannot take this ploy any further. So, in the end, it didn't matter, but at least it was more interesting than the game [on Tuesday]".
Here's a sneak peek:
Anand speaks to ChessBase India following his Tata Steel Chess India blitz victory
