Gelfand plays stronger opponents here than in Kazan (Kamsky, Mamedyarov, Grischuk) and it's no surprise that he will find it difficult to avoid last place as in Linares and Corus the last times he played there.

I guess his initials are A.G and that it isn't Grischuk :-)

That he had no clue what was happening in the game until he looked at the engines

Steven, it was an incredible game, that at one point no one could really understand. One moment you thought White was winning, the next moment Black. Carlsen, in true Stienitz fashion, almost retreated all his pieces to their original positions...Kramnik had a commanding lead in space, but Carlsen's camp had no weaknesses. Kramnik started losing the thread a little, and they agreed a draw right after the time control, when Carlsen had a minuscule advantage. It was not a game; it was an adventure!

When I read the title I thought it was quoting Kramnik, as he said various things that were very similar after the game :)

A couple of month ago, he was going to be a new Capablanca.
Now a reincarnation of Steinz.

Maybe he will play like La Bourdonnais next.

Mamedyarov tried to qualify for the Candidates in all qualifications but failed, so did Grischuk, while Kamsky's results in Grand Prix and World Cup weren't impressive either. Now they were all given spots in the Candidates in the end in spite of failing in the qualification events, but they wouldn't be expected to do much better than Gelfand in these surroundings.

Kasmijanov also won a knockout, and that against stronger opponents than those Gelfand faced in Kazan. He won against Topalov, Ivanchuk and Adams (and Grischuk) but that didn't mean that he was a stronger player than them as his other results showed time and again. One can't evaluate players based on knockouts. Gelfand is of course not a bad player but I wouldn't rank him in the top ten, would you, and in that case how does your top ten look?

as a matter of fact Gelfand will win against anand ... ask my wiife !

true, Anand is making quick draws, he is hidding behing his tittle

I don't think Anand is so much better than all other players that he easily would be #1 if he just wanted to, the competition is tough. Anand wasn't that far ahead of Topalov in their match (5.5-5.5 before the last game with Topalov as white, when many predicted a change on the throne), and that was a Topalov that was weaker than a few years back, and was called a bad match player. 2800+ and top three is good for a 40+ years old player though.

"A useful waiting move" is indeed a "ridiculous" comment.

Probably h6 is just a theoretical fashion move. Nothing more. I imagive if 3..Nc6 4.Nc3 and now Bb4 5.Nd5 Nxd5 6.cxd5 the black knight has to move. After h6 it does not. And if 3.Nf3, e4 is possible because the knight can not go to g5 to attack the pawn. Now I do not much about this opening so these were just ideas I came up with.

In soccer we teach kids to use the inside of the foot when passing the ball, but I have sometimes seen Messi use the outside of the foot. In other words, he is a total patzer :) (In all seriousness, I don't disagree too much with your comment.)

Many other moves would have been even more useful. The comment by Giri suggests that it is useful to play a waiting move on move 3, which is rather absurd.

All you say may be perfectly true, although I have serious doubts about your last sentence.
By the way, the relative popularity of 3... h6 may well have something to do with Houdini’s evaluation (or malfunctioning?).
Even I might have played moves like Nb8 and Bc8, but with the feeling something has gone terribly wrong; I would hide my face and hope no clubmates are around.
And that is about what I mean; a good game comment is not just about computer evaluations, it should also give the ‘feel’ of the game. As I understand it, Giri says white is winning after 20 Qg4. Looking at the position, I can’t imagine he is wrong. Then, what has gone wrong for black? Here the old dogma’s are really shouting at me, playing through blacks moves. It can’t be just 12… Bd7 instead of Ba7. If a sequence leads to a lost position after 20 moves, it is not to blame on one individual inaccurate move.
Carlsen himself says on move 12: “I couldn’t find a decent move”. And commenting on 16 f5 he doesn’t sound too positive either, to say the least. At least he himself had a pretty good idea about what he had done.
Carlsen can have complete off-days. Remember his loss against Giri in Wijk aan Zee? But in Friday’s game, he also made a wonderful comeback, and I must say: I enjoyed it more than many perfect games I have seen.