Sochi 2014: World Championship of Chess - Carlsen vs. Anand

[Phoenix]

The rematch.

A year ago, young Magnus Carlsen, coming in with the highest rating ever achieved by a chess player, utterly destroyed the multi-time defending World Champion, Vishy Anand, right in Anand's backyard in Chennai, India.

Carlsen, a Norwegian, is supremely confident. But Anand won the Candidates tournament earlier this year as an underdog, then went on to dominate many other grand masters in a follow up tournament. He has been on a roll. He has nothing to lose.

This is going to be a WAR. And it starts tomorrow, on Saturday.




And yes, chess is a sport. The IOC SAYS so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Olympiad

Recognized sport

Bobby Fischer's score card from his round 3 game against Miguel Najdorf in the 1970 Chess Olympiad.


Chess is recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC);[3] since June 1999 FIDE has been the recognized International Sports Federation.[3][4][5][6] As a member of the IOC, FIDE adheres to its rules, including, controversially, a requirement for doping tests.[7][8][9][10] The prospects of chess becoming an Olympic sporting event at some future date remain unclear. The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and implies no connection with the Olympic Games.



In fact, they are playing in Sochi in a follow up to the Winter Olympics as a point...they want chess included in the Olympics...

The opening press conference from about an hour ago is here:

http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/video-archive/

 

[Phoenix]

Interesting game 1 today. 5 1/2 hours. Very even. Anand with white went on the attack immediately. Carlsen brilliant in defense. Towards end game, it was almost a certain draw approaching but Anand made a slight error giving Magnus his opening to try for a win. Vishy was sweating it a bit there. But then Magnus himself made a little oopsie, giving Vishy a chance to equalize back to draw status, which he did fantastically. He made a move with his queen over to H1 that nobody foresaw, giving the piece a brilliant opening to put the black King in repetitive check, resulting in 1/2 point each, a draw. Anand is a master at defense. And he almost blundered his way to a loss, just as he did TWICE in Chennai last year. An excellent game today.

Game two tomorrow.

 

[YosemiteSam]

I was a huge chess fan at one point. Even used to sell high end chess sets. I was never that great at the game though bouncing around between 1500-1750. I just never had enough time to keep practicing. It was mostly a cyclical hobby which didn't help my improvement efforts.

 

[honyock]

I was a huge chess fan at one point. Even used to sell high end chess sets. I was never that great at the game though bouncing around between 1500-1750. I just never had enough time to keep practicing. It was mostly a cyclical hobby which didn't help my improvement efforts.

Me too, I followed it pretty closely from the Fischer/Spassky match through the Kasparov era, even though I was a mediocre-to-bad player.

By the way, here is a really interesting article about the behind the scenes story when Kasparov famously lost the match to IBM's computer Deep Blue. Pretty fascinating first game in that match...Deep Blue made a bizarre move for reasons unique to a computer, which led Kasparov a game later to make a huge mistake with reasoning that only a human could make.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rage-against-the-machines/

 

[Phoenix]

Vishy Anand clearly has a Magnus problem. He is just losing focus and making blunders and trying to recover during mid to end games, just as he did in Chennai last year.

The first game on Saturday, he was able to recover to salvage a draw, but yesterday, in Game 2, playing black, he made just a horrible error that swiftly resulted in a loss. The game was fairly even until about mid game, when Vishy made several slight errors in a row to establish a clearly unfavorable and unpleasant position, especially on the Queen's side. Magnus gained complete control of the E file and the 7th rank to put a stranglehold on the game, and the pressure forced Anand to, I think, panic a little and make a tactical pawn move that Magnus could only stare in wonder at, salivating. He immediately swooped in with his Queen to back a strongly positioned rook to decimate Vishy's hopes for coming back for a draw. Vishy is one of the best defenders on the planet, and to see him make such a glaring mistake at that point, in this situation, well, it bodes not well for his psyche and his chances in this match. It seems he is clearly intimidated and focusing too much on who is across the board from him and not on the material positions on the board.

Today is a rest day. Game 3 on Tuesday. Magnus ahead 1 1/2 to 1/2. Still a lot to be played, will be interesting to see how Anand responds.

 

[Phoenix]

Me too, I followed it pretty closely from the Fischer/Spassky match through the Kasparov era, even though I was a mediocre-to-bad player.

By the way, here is a really interesting article about the behind the scenes story when Kasparov famously lost the match to IBM's computer Deep Blue. Pretty fascinating first game in that match...Deep Blue made a bizarre move for reasons unique to a computer, which led Kasparov a game later to make a huge mistake with reasoning that only a human could make.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rage-against-the-machines/

From that article:


In the Beginning …

A chess game, like everything else, has three parts: the beginning, the middle and the end. What’s a little different about chess is that each of these phases tests different intellectual and emotional skills, making the game a mental triathlon of speed, strength, and stamina.

In the beginning of a chess game the center of the board is void, with pawns, rooks, and bishops neatly aligned in the first two rows awaiting instructions from their masters. The possibilities are almost infinite. White can open the game in any of twenty different ways, and black can respond with twenty of its own moves, creating 4,000 possible sequences after the first full turn. After the second full turn, there are 71,852 possibilities; after the third, there are 9,132,484. The number of possibilities in an entire chess game, played to completion, is so large that it is a significant problem even to estimate it, but some mathematicians put the number as high as 101050. [edit: that is 10 to the 10th to the 50th power. Didn't copy right so I tried to show it by resizing, but I can't get the numbers to levitate up to where they should be] These are astronomical numbers: as Diego Rasskin-Gutman has written, “There are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”17


Wow.

 

[honyock]

From that article:


In the Beginning …

A chess game, like everything else, has three parts: the beginning, the middle and the end. What’s a little different about chess is that each of these phases tests different intellectual and emotional skills, making the game a mental triathlon of speed, strength, and stamina.

In the beginning of a chess game the center of the board is void, with pawns, rooks, and bishops neatly aligned in the first two rows awaiting instructions from their masters. The possibilities are almost infinite. White can open the game in any of twenty different ways, and black can respond with twenty of its own moves, creating 4,000 possible sequences after the first full turn. After the second full turn, there are 71,852 possibilities; after the third, there are 9,132,484. The number of possibilities in an entire chess game, played to completion, is so large that it is a significant problem even to estimate it, but some mathematicians put the number as high as 101050. [edit: that is 10 to the 10th to the 50th power. Didn't copy right so I tried to show it by resizing, but I can't get the numbers to levitate up to where they should be] These are astronomical numbers: as Diego Rasskin-Gutman has written, “There are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”17


Wow.

That leaped out at me in the article too. Pretty amazing.

 

[Phoenix]

Ahhhhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha!

twitter: Garry Kasparov ‏@Kasparov63 2m2 minutes ago
Didn't Vishy remember that Berlin Walls fall on November 9?!


(Anand had employed a variation of the Berlin Defense during the game)

 

[Phoenix]

Bobby Fischer's "Game of the Century". He was a 13 year old prodigy. This video shows the entire game and explains the moves. Excellent EXCELLENT instructional video if anyone is interested. This game was referenced in the article link above.

 

[Phoenix]

So they say that one definition of insanity is doing something the same way over and over again while expecting a different result. Somebody must have mentioned that to Vishy Anand. Because today was a different day indeed. Today was a day just packed with rarities.

Anand won. Against Carlsen. In a World Championship game. This is a first.
Carlsen lost. Against Anand. In a World Championship game. This is a first.

Anand did not make any blunders. Not a single slight error. This is a first against Carlsen.

Anand had white pieces and immediately started off in a theoretical game, playing very sharply, and Carlsen obliged him. Anand was playing a theoretical approach game that his friend and fellow GM Levon Aronian rolled out at some point last year, and it was an extremely complicated game, but around move 20, Anand broke from the game last year and started a variation, actually improving on the Aronian one, and it left Magnus Carlsen struggling. All of this was a first, too.

Carlsen was waaaaaay down on the time control, while Anand was playing at a blistering pace. Magnus simply saw no way to improve his position - and he was quite right. He was doomed, because Vishy was striking fast, and not making any errors whatsoever. I've never EVER seen Magnus in that tight of a spot, and I have never personally seen him resign so early, accepting defeat. That simply is not Magnus. Magnus got out-Magnus'ed today. It was incredible. Carlsen was so shook that he declined to stay at the board after the game to talk with Anand about the game, which they generally always do. Carlsen simply let the time control clock run down to all zeros while shaking Anand's hand in accepting defeat, turned on his heel and split.

Vishy's got a nickname, of The Tiger. Today the crouching Tiger pounced. And it was magnificent.

All tied up now, 1 1/2 - 1 1/2 each. Game 4 tomorrow.

Oh, and also: This was Vishy Anand's first win against Magnus Carlsen in four years.

 

[Phoenix]

So game 4 is live. Pretty even game so far.



Live video feed with commentary:

http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/live-games/



Nice site for chess board positions with Top 3 Chess Engine instant analysis and suggestions and graphs:

https://arena.chessdom.com/#/game/stream/59413

 

[Phoenix]

Judit Polgar ‏@GMJuditPolgar 4m4 minutes ago
Wanna know what a retired chess queen does in her free time? Gets a chair and checks what Vishy and Manus are up to

 

[Phoenix]

Another draw today. Pretty strong play from both sides. 2-2 dead heat score after four games, making this now a best of 8.

 

[Phoenix]

http://www.businessinsider.com/carl...stuff-at-the-world-chess-championship-2014-11


(Pretty good write up in this article)

On Wednesday at the World Chess Championship in Sochi, Russia, Game 4 ended in a draw.

But what a draw!

Sure, I realize that sounds like a downer, after a Game 2 in which Magnus Carlsen, the world number one and current World Champion, crushed his Challenger, Vishy Anand.

And a Game 3 in which Anand, who is from India, struck back and crushed Carlsen, a Norwegian.

You couldn't have asked for two more exciting days of great, fighting chess between two elite players.


Prior to the match, plenty of experts and observers thought that although Anand has done well to get back to the WCC to stage a rematch of last year's contest, which he lost, he didn't stand much of a chance against Carlsen, currently the highest rated player in the history of the game.

Anand has completely reversed that opinion and proved not just that he remains a tremendous player at the top level, but that he's a worthy challenger for Magnus' crown.

Game 4 may have lacked some of the drama of Games 3 and 4, but it was still thoroughly impressive, for similar yet different reasons. The score now stands at 2 points apiece, with 8 games to go (draws are worth half a point, wins a full point, and losses zero).




(lots of discussions of the game 4 - well worth reading!!)




And gentlemen they were! One of the great images in modern sports then appeared.

Anand and Carlsen spent an additional few minutes discussing the position and the game. They knew that they had produced something simultaneously beautiful and yet frustrating. It was sort of Carlsen's fault, for avoiding the sharper Sicilian lines and aiming for a more low-key game. But he still had to play it out.

The two men clearly have great respect for each other.

Sportsmanship!



After 4 games — as Carlsen pointed out — the score is exactly the same as last year: 2-2. But how we got here! Whew! For chess fans and even newcomers to the game, it's been an utter thrilling start to the World Chess Championship rematch.

Thursday is a rest day. The match will resume on Friday, with Anand playing white.

You can watch the entire match replay here.

And GM Daniel King provides a great review of the game at ChessBase.

 

[Phoenix]

Game 5 today was a draw, with both players playing very strongly. Anand with white maintained a slightly better position for pretty much the whole game, but as both players were very precise, with no errors, the draw became inevitable. All tied still at 2 1/2 - 2 1/2.

Magnus Carlsen at this point last year in Chennai went on to dominate. Will he again this year? He has a very good chance now, as he gets to play the white pieces for the next 2 games in a row. He even made a comment about that at the post game press conference, "Now is the time to get a lead"...

We will see.

 

[Phoenix]

So I slept through the entire game 6 today, which saw Carlsen playing with white, Anand with black. I went and reviewed move by move and was stunned to see that a rare double back-to-back blunder was made in mid game, one by each player. Up until that point (move 26), Carlsen had been in a favorable position for the entire game, with Vishy intent on just playing defense, not really trying to mount any offense at all.

Then, out of the blue, Magnus made a stunning error, moving his King to precisely the ONE square that he should have avoided at all costs! I mean, LITERALLY any other square and he maintains his favorable position, but by putting his King on d2, he inadvertently handed almost a certain win to Vishy in one fell swoop, if Vishy saw the sudden weakness, and went on the attack, starting the line moves to make it happen. But he didn't. He completely did not even stop to analyze at all, moving a pawn immediately in a meaningless move, and give Magnus a chance to escape the almost certain doom. I had to go watch the tape to see, and it was quite evident on the players faces the series of emotions as they in turn realized what had just happened after each of their moves. Wow.

Vishy in particular was pretty shook up, and he never recovered psychologically. He went on to play a horrible end game and lost. Magnus with the gimme Win, yet again, from Anand (happened a couple times in Chennai last year).

At the post game press conference, both players got drilled by the press on their errors. Magnus explained that normally he feels "happy" after a win. Today, he wasn't happy, he said he was simply "relieved". Someone asked him what he was feeling immediately after realizing his enormous error with Kd2, and he said that as soon as he made the move, and hit the clock timer, and looked back at the board, it suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks what he had just done, and he was in a complete state of panic. Then when Vishy let him off the hook with his own enormous error, he was just insanely relieved. I noticed in the tape that just after Anand made that error, letting Magnus off the hook, Magnus got up and went to the back for a break. I imagine he was back there, uh, celebrating

Grand Master Susan Polgar's tweets were interesting during the double blunder:


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
Magnus just blundered! Now Anand can play Nxe5! #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14



Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
Incredible! Magnus blundered and Anand moved immediately without even thinking! #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14 Now Magnus is much better.


Des Peres, MO
Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
If Anand loses this game, he will kick himself. Magnus handed the game to him and he moved instantly #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14



Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
Anand has 26... Nxe5 27. Rxg8 Nxc4+ 28. Kd3 Nb2+ 29. Ke2 Rxg8 30. Rxh6 and Magnus would have been in trouble @anandcarlsen14 #CarlsenAnand


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
This was the gift of the match for Anand and he did not see it. What a bad time for Anand to play instantly after Kd2?? #CarlsenAnand



Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
I think Anand is lost now, too many weaknesses. What a turn around in this game! Incredible! #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14



Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 6h 6 hours ago
Still stunned about what happened! It is not so often in this level for 2 top players to blunder back to back @anandcarlsen14 #CarlsenAnand



Kirkwood, MO
Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
This is a huge psychological blow for Anand. The one move he made instantly is the move he needed to take time. A pity #CarlsenAnand


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
And Anand resigned. This is a devastating blow for Anand. He had the win in his hands and blew it. #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14




...and then the post game comments that she highlighted:


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
Anand: When you are not expecting a gift, sometimes you don't see it. #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
Carlsen after his blunder: It is a feeling of complete panic. Sometimes you get very lucky & get away with it #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14



Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
Carlsen: I am very relieved. #CarlsenAnand @anandcarlsen14


Susan Polgar @SusanPolgar · 5h 5 hours ago
Carlsen about his blunder: I don't think the position is dead lost..the position is bad & you just have to try to defend it #CarlsenAnand

(that's not what a ton of other Grand Masters thought - they all thought Magnus was dead meat)



rest day tomorrow, then on Monday Game 7, with Magnus Carlsen again playing with white. Anand looks to be in big, big trouble.

 

[burmafrd]

Anand just ain't got it when it matters

 

[Phoenix]

Another terrific write up by the Business Insider guy. He explains everything in terms that most people can relate to and understand.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/disaster-strikes-vishy-anand-game-011526648.html


Disaster Strikes For Vishy Anand In Game 6 Of The World Chess Championship
By Matthew DeBord 16 hours ago


In Game 6 of the World Chess Championship in Sochi, Russia, challenger Viswanathan Anand of India missed a crucial opportunity to snatch a win from Magnus Carlsen, the champ from Norway.

Anand never recovered on Saturday and went from holding a draw with the black pieces to melting into a puddle of defeat.

It was one of those moments: when the entire game turned, literally, on one move. The shocking thing is that it was Carlsen who made the critical mistake — but Carlsen who benefitted from Anand's inability to punish him for it.

The consensus among the commentators for the official online broadcast (especially Grandmaster Peter Svidler and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik) was that Anand was shattered psychologically over the board and would not be able to bounce back to keep Carlsen at bay.

.....

......

With just a bit of basic knowledge, however, it's possible to follow a Grandmaster game.

And sometimes, Grandmasters do things that are very...un-Grandmaster-ish.

It's rare that I can distill an entire GM game to a single move, but in Game 6, the whole contest came down to a single position on the board. Here it is:

(edit - see that white King on D2? That was the enormous blunder!)


...
...
...



And then Carlsen made a dreadful move.

In chess, this is called a "blunder." And in Carlsen's case, if Anand had spotted it, Carlsen might have resigned on the spot, or after a few more moves. The situation currently is tough for Anand: because Anand started with white in Game 1, Carlsen now gets two games in a row as white: Games 6 and 7. Nabbing a win would have put Anand into a great position headed into the second half of the match.

But Anand didn't spot Carlsen's blunder. And because he didn't spot it — but realized his error quite quickly — he had to play the rest of the game in a sort of grim fog of understanding: that he had a nearly impossible chance to take a lead in his unlikely effort to reclaim the title that Carlsen took from his last year, and at the moment of truth, he blew it.

The rest of the game was a death march. It was unpleasant to watch.



...
...
..


In top-level chess, catastrophes flow from such seemingly innocuous little moves that are actually monumental blunders.

Prior to this move, the position on the board represented a tense struggle, with both players essentially even. The action, such as it was, was on the g- and h-files: rooks against rooks, the black knight unable to do much, and Anand's main source of concern the fate of his lone pawn on the h-file.

But then Carlsen made the move Kd2 on move 26 of the game.


Anand suddenly had the chance to use his stuck knight on g6, to devastating effect.

He could have taken the pawn on e5, creating a "discovered attack" on the white rook on g4. But it would also have been a "double attack," with the knight hitting the pawn on c4 and rook on g4 — and the rook on g4 is attacked twice, by both the black knight and the black rook.

Carlsen could take the knight that's now on e5 with the rook on h5, but then Anand would be able to take the rook on g4 with the black rook on g8: the math of the exchange would be in black's favor, as Anand would have picked up a pawn and rook for the loss of a knight.

So Carlsen has to take the rook on g8, but here's where it gets wild: before Anand takes back with the black rook on h8, he has an in-between move.

The best kind of in between move — he can take another pawn, the one on c4, and he can do it while putting the white king in check.

When you can take a piece for free, and do it with check, it's usually worth it. The black knight can't be retaken, so Carlsen has to move his king out of check, and then Anand can take the rook. He will probably lose the knight, but he's gained two pawns and a rook. He could have translated this into a decisive advantage.

In the press conference after the game, when asked what he felt when he realized what he had done with his blunder, Carlsen used one word.

Panic.


...
...
...


A dead loss for Carlsen became a win for the 23-year-old Norwegian.


...
...
...



No one expects this kind of thing to happen in a chess match at this level. When it does, it's sort of incomprehensible — like discovering a portal to a different dimension where everything is anguish and agony and pain and defeat.

Cruel game.

Anand is fortunate that Sunday is a rest day. He can pull himself together. He is a grown man, 44 years old, and a chess player of the highest caliber. He's screwed up before.

Carlsen can consider himself massively lucky and try to convert that into victory. In the context of chess at his and Anand's level, Carlsen basically stole a game. But to his credit, he obviously has Anand under so much stress that the former World Champion isn't playing moves that much lesser competitors might see in an instant.

 

[Phoenix]

Interesting game 7 today. Ended in a draw but took quite a long time to do so - over 7 hours and close to a world record number of moves in a World Championship game, an astonishing 122.

Score after 7 games:

Magnus Carlsen - 4
Vishy Anand - 3


Vishy plays with white tomorrow in game 8.


There were no blunders in this long drawn out game. Both players were pretty spot on perfect, with Vishy playing his textbook perfect defense throughout, and especially during the incredibly long end game that lasted for hours. It could have been drawn WAAAAAAAY before it was, but with even the slightest advantage for white that Magnus had, well, that's Magnus being Magnus, he just never quits.

It was funny watching the past hour of the game live. I could swear I saw several obvious moments when Vishy just glared daggers at Magnus for continuing the game lol. At one point it seemed to me that Vishy asked for a draw after about 90 moves in or so (I mean he mouthed something to Carlsen, and I'm guessing it was suggesting a draw), and Carlsen very quickly just shook his head no without even looking up from the board.

Then in the post game press conference, the questions were asked that of course had to be asked:

Magnus, did you intentionally keep the game going so long just to further exhaust Vishy for tomorrow's game?
Vishy, were you annoyed?

and on & on. There were some great subtle digs by both players:



Anand - "I mean, the whole last hour of the game was rather superfluous"

Carlsen - "When he chose to play with 4 pawns & a rook against my 2 pawns and a rook/knight, he signed up for the suffering"



Yeah, so beginning of the end game saw Vishy build a fortress with his pawns protecting his King, and he had his rook out there playing around the board against Magnus who was jibbing and jabbing trying to set traps and probe any slight weakness but Vishy played perfect defense. Magnus just kept going at it, to the chagrin of pretty much everyone, just waiting to see if Vishy ever made even a slight error to which he could exploit, but none ever came. I mean they played until just Kings were left on the board, with white having one horsie left as well, and that was FINALLY it.

Interesting game.

 

[Phoenix]

http://www.chessdom.com/carlsen-and...me/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Carlsen and Anand come close to breaking the record for longest World Championship game
Nov 17, 2014


Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand came two moves short of breaking the record for longest World Championship game. They played a Rook + Knight vs Rook ending, which arose from the Berlin opening, in their round 7 game of the World Chess Championship 2014 in Sochi. The game ended on move 122 in a draw.

The longest game in a World Championship match so far remains the game between the legendary players Korchnoi and Karpov in Baguio 1978. It was draw in 124 moves.

The game Carlsen – Anand from round 7 broke a viewership record: it visited by 450 000+ people on the Chess Arena online platform during the day, and with 170 000 simultaneous viewers around move 60 the servers could not take it anymore. Starting tomorrow the server structure will be doubled to hold the final rounds. Thank you for following with us!


....




and that's just one site. There are others also live streaming each game, such as the official Sochi chess WC site, etc. Lots of folks watching these games...