World Chess Championship 2012

[David N. Snyder]

Not totally Dharma related, but I know there are some others out there who are also interested in chess.

The World Chess Championship is going right now in Moscow, Russia between defending champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel. The prize fund is 2.55 million US Dollars.

There have been several past champions and grandmasters of Jewish ethnicity, but this is the first time an Israeli citizen has competed in a World Championship match. Gelfand is originally from Belarus and immigrated to Israel in 1998.

Anand is the first World Chess Champion from India in modern times.

After 4 games, they are currently even at four draws. The match is 12 games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Ches ... nship_2012

Here is the official website of the Championship match:
http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/
It has links to all the games where you can play through each game and see each move and board position.

FIDE president (International Chess Federation) meets with Dalai Lama and other senior Tibetan officials and monks.
http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... hinov.html

And he plays chess with one of the officials:
http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... shala.html

[mindyourmind]

Thank you for this, David.

I love chess, but I somehow manage to regularly miss out on following the big events like this one.

What a wonderful game.

[Clarence]

Thanks for that.

Do you know why Magnus is not playing? He is the highest ranking player in the world, right?

[David N. Snyder]

What a wonderful game.

The best; the game of kings (and queens).

[David N. Snyder]

Do you know why Magnus is not playing? He is the highest ranking player in the world, right?

Yes, he is the highest ranking in terms of elo chess rating. I don't know why he backed out of the candidates tournament. Maybe he wanted a 'free-pass' to the championship without the tournament? But not sure, what the reasons were and haven't found anything online yet. He is only 21 years old so hopefully he will compete and play next time.

[Clarence]

Thanks David. I like chess but I am not well-versed enough to understand all the tournament and world championship rules. I understand the chess piece rules though.

[David N. Snyder]

I found the reasons Magnus did not participate:

After careful consideration I’ve reached the conclusion that the ongoing 2008–2012 cycle does not represent a system, sufficiently modern and fair, to provide the motivation I need to go through a lengthy process of preparations and matches and to perform at my best.

Reigning champion privileges, the long (five year) span of the cycle, changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates) that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion.

In my opinion privileges should in general be abolished and a future World Championship model should be based on a fair fight between the best players in the World, on equal terms. This should apply also to the winner of the previous World Championship, and especially so when there are several players at approximately the same level in the world elite. (Why should one player have one out of two tickets to the final to the detriment of all remaining players in the world? Imagine that the winner of the 2010 Football World Cup would be directly qualified to the 2014 World Cup final while all the rest of the teams would have to fight for the other spot.)

One possibility for future cycles would be to stage an 8-10 player World Championship tournament similar to the 2005 and 2007 events.

The proposal to abolish the privileges of the World Champion in the future is not in any way meant as criticism of, or an attack on, the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who is a worthy World Champion, a role model chess colleague and a highly esteemed opponent.

Rest assured that I am still motivated to play competitive chess. My current plan is to continue to participate in well-organised top-level tournaments and to try to maintain the no 1 spot on the rating list that I have successfully defended for most of 2010.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6789

I see his point about the free-pass the reigning champion gets to the Championship, but that is how most matches have been played over the past centuries and tradition is hard to break. I also like the 2 person format of a 'Final' match. I suppose there could be a tournament where the top players meet as equals for the two slots in a Final match.

[David N. Snyder]

Game 6:

29 moves
Another draw

6 games so far (half-way through the match) and 6 draws.
3-3



Boris Gelfand is exhausted. And who says chess is not a sport.

[Will]

Is it true that if the 12 game series ends up tied - as it may - the playoff is a lightning chess match? If yes, how many games and how fast do they have to make each move?

Re: Magnus Carlson not playing. I saw a short interview (60 Minutes, I think) about him. He strikes me as very talented, but too vain, lazy & getting spoiled to make a World champion. As long he wins without too much stress, fine, but now he is beginning the complaints about "fairness" that Fischer began with. That does not mean he will go off his nut like Bobby, but he is lining up excuses to avoid being beat, in a public fashion.

[kirtu]

Is it true that if the 12 game series ends up tied - as it may - the playoff is a lightning chess match?

Ah - I forgot about those fast games .... 25 mins per GAME!? That is essentially blitz chess at this level. And then a provision for real blitz games?? Did FIDE add this over the past couple of decades? In the olden days (pre-Fischer-Spassky) a tie conclusion meant that the champion kept his crown.

Kirt

[David N. Snyder]

Hi Will,

The match format is the best of 12 games. Players scored one point for a win and half a point for a draw. The match will end once either player scored a minimum of 6½ points. Time control is 120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and 30 additional seconds per move starting from move 61.

In case of a tie at the end of 12 games, there will be a series of tie breaks.

1.Colors will be drawn and four rapid games will be played. The time control for these games will be 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move.
2. If the score is tied after the four rapid tie break games, colors will be drawn and two blitz games (5 minutes plus 10 seconds increment per move) will be played. If the score is tied after two blitz games, another two-game blitz match will be played, under the same terms. The process will repeat, if necessary, until five blitz matches have been played.
3. If the score is tied after ten blitz games, a single sudden-death "Armageddon game" will determine the champion. The winner of a draw of lots gets to choose the colour to play, with white given 5 minutes and Black 4 minutes. Beginning with move 61, a three-second increment will be added following each move. If the game is drawn then the player of the Black pieces is declared champion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Ches ... conditions

I am hoping Anand will win. But in the event it does go to the tie-breaks it should be pretty interesting and exciting to see them play the faster games.

[kirtu]

As long he wins without too much stress, fine, but now he is beginning the complaints about "fairness" that Fischer began with. That does not mean he will go off his nut like Bobby, but he is lining up excuses to avoid being beat, in a public fashion.

Fischer wasn't all wrong and he wasn't really crazy (for a chess master) until possibly somewhat later. Of course all that runs a firestorm risk.

Kirt

[kirtu]

In case of a tie at the end of 12 games, there will be a series of tie breaks.
... blitz games provisions ...

Have these provisions ever been played at International/Grandmaster level before? WOW! That Wikipedia article has a table showing fast and blitz games results for Anand and Gelfand. I'm taken aback.

Kirt

[David N. Snyder]

Have these provisions ever been played at International/Grandmaster level before? WOW! That Wikipedia article has a table showing fast and blitz games results for Anand and Gelfand. I'm taken aback.

Only twice before, in the championship match of 1998 (Karpov defeated Anand) and again in 2006 (Kraminik defeated Topolov). In both instances a couple of "rapid" games (25 minutes for the game) were played, but it has never gone to the lightning-blitz round or "Armageddon" game yet.

[David N. Snyder]

The tie-break system sort of reminds me of the penalty kicks in soccer (football) when there is a tie at the end of regulation / full time. The tie-break system does not provide the best chess just as the penalty kicks does not provide the full soccer skills, but it gives some closure with a decisive outcome for the fans.

[Will]

As long he wins without too much stress, fine, but now he is beginning the complaints about "fairness" that Fischer began with. That does not mean he will go off his nut like Bobby, but he is lining up excuses to avoid being beat, in a public fashion.

Fischer wasn't all wrong and he wasn't really crazy (for a chess master) until possibly somewhat later. Of course all that runs a firestorm risk.

Kirt

In the 60 Minutes interview Carlson was asked if he worried about ending up like Fischer and he admitted he does think about such consequences. But if I recall, Fischer was totally focused on chess, whereas Carlson has many other interests. That balance bodes well for Carlson's sanity, but may weaken his chess-samadhi over time.

Thanks David for the outline of the tournament rules. Seems I read somewhere that Anand was much better than Boris at any form of quickened chess.

[David N. Snyder]

In the 60 Minutes interview Carlson was asked if he worried about ending up like Fischer and he admitted he does think about such consequences. But if I recall, Fischer was totally focused on chess, whereas Carlson has many other interests. That balance bodes well for Carlson's sanity, but may weaken his chess-samadhi over time.

Carlsen appears to also do some modeling. Not the typical stereotype of a model, since he must have a genius IQ. Here he is on the Colbert Report:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... us-carlsen

His rating puts him at the top in terms of ranking based on rating, but he'll never be known as one of the greatest unless he wins a World Championship. Hopefully he will come around and play by the FIDE rules for the next competition as there is still plenty of time for him since he is only 21 years old. I think most chess enthusiasts preferred a dream match-up of Anand vs. Carlsen, but Gelfand is not so bad; he did jump through all the hoops winning in several competitions and against many others to get to this position.

[David N. Snyder]

A rest day today in the competition, so in the meantime see this beautiful photo of Anand and his wife.

[catmoon]

I just had to look at the position in Gary's post above. Yeah it looks pretty dead, but....

White has a number of threats that could begin with QxP or BxP sacrifices. True, his bishop is pinned, but hey, these are grandmasters.

The bishops are on the same colors, so the endgame might be promising but

The pawns are exactly, precisely what you don't want to see. Very drawish.

I'm wondering why they drew. Is it possible big exchanges were coming down the pipe?

[David N. Snyder]

Breaking News!

Game 7
Gelfand defeats Anand 1-0

3 hours 57 minutes
38 moves

Both players had only a couple of minutes or less on their time clocks.

It is very possible this could be the only 'win' in the match (the first 6 games were draws) which would mean Gelfand would win and become the new World Chess Champion. But perhaps Anand will play a little more aggressively in the remaining games and at least even it back up.

Score through 7 games:
4-3 Gelfand leading so far