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UCReview Since: Apr, 2012
#1: May 8th 2012 at 9:52:50 PM

So, the World Chess Championship tournament begins in a couple days! The incumbent champion, Viswanathan Anand (India) is set to take on the challenger Boris Gelfand (Israel).

I myself have been fascinated by the runup to the tournament. Both Anand (who has been champion for 5 years now) and Gelfand have been said to be fading recently, with Anand sliding to #4 ranked in the world and Gelfand falling to #20 ranked. Anand has a slim lead over Gelfand in their previous matchups, but it's only 1 game. Then there were also all the pre-game upsets, such as neither Kramnik (#3 ranked) or Aronian (#2 ranked) making it into the challenger's seat, and Magnus Carlsen (#1 ranked player on Earth) refusing to compete. And, of course, it's unusual that no one from Russia or an ex-USSR state is competing (the Soviets dominated the chess world championship from 1948 through 1993, basically, excepting Bobby Fisher's reign in 72-75. And then that only ended because the chess world split into two leagues and there wasn't one world champion anymore. Even then, they dominated Kasparov's league, and did pretty well in FIDE's too — excepting Anand, who briefly took the title in 2000.).

(I was a little disappointed that neither Gata Kamsky (#14) or Hikaru Nakamura (#7), America's two best players, or Judit Polgar (#36, #1 ranked woman player) made it into the challenger's seat, but it's probably just as well; I'm almost certain Kamsky could not beat Anand, and I would give Nakamura and Polgar only slightly higher odds against him.)

Is anyone else following the match? Who do you think will win? I think Anand can still pull it off — he does have a higher rank and that slim winning record over Gelfand. He's also won two world championships before, which seems like it should be relevant.

edited 8th May '12 9:56:52 PM by UCReview

Pyrite Until further notice from Right. Beneath. You. Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Hiding
Until further notice
#2: May 8th 2012 at 10:03:51 PM

You might get a better response in the Tabletop Games forum - pretty sure there were a couple of chess threads there.

Sadly, haven't been following. Last played chess back when Kasparov was World Champion, had a queen thrown at my head.tongue

edited 8th May '12 10:04:00 PM by Pyrite

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UltimatelySubjective Since: Jun, 2011
#3: May 9th 2012 at 1:06:46 AM

You know what? I completely forgot that Chess was a "Tabletop" game.

All this time I've been thinking that that section was mostly for TRP Gs. surprised

Lemurian from Touhou fanboy attic Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
#4: May 9th 2012 at 3:21:13 AM

and Magnus Carlsen (#1 ranked player on Earth) refusing to compete

Say whut? Why did he go and do that?

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UCReview Since: Apr, 2012
#5: May 9th 2012 at 8:25:38 AM

He didn't like the match format and wanted to whine about it, basically:

—>"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."
— Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen seems to be going for the Bobby Fisher route of "young, amazing chess prodigy who is also a complete and utter jerk". After all, Fisher also refused to compete for the World Championship because he disliked the match format. (Of course, he refused to defend his title, not to try to obtain it, so I suppose that's a little different).

What's he talking about re: privileges is that there's currently a tournament to provide a Challenger (in this case, Gelfand), who then goes on to play the Champion to see who the new Champion is. Carlsen argues that this is like giving the winner of the Superbowl a bye into the next Superbowl match, and instead, the Champion should have to compete in a tournament just like anyone else. His opponents argue that it's important that the Champion title only pass by direct defeat; it's not as satisfying if the world champion blunders and gets taken out early in the tournament, and two new people end up competing for the Championship title.

There's reasonable arguments to be made on both sides. But Carlsen's not making them, he's just taking his ball and going home.

edited 9th May '12 9:20:54 AM by UCReview

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