i m sorry if this is stupid question.

will the win or loss in rapid affect the elo ratings of the players

@yump
no, it wont. rapid matches do not have a rating procedure.

@Chess Fan

prelims (6 games)
Anand 5/6
Carlsen 3.5/6

finals (2 games)
Anand 0.5/2
Carlsen 1.5/2

overall
Anand 5.5/8
Carlsen 5.0/8

who won?
lol

Clearly there is a problem is with match format - favoring Carlsen

Being interested in close-ups of the players is a personal thing; I'm only interested in the game on the board. All I wanted to say is that it's great to follow these games live. Apparantly this is impossible in big tournaments in, for example, the Netherlands.

Still any questions as to who is the world number one????????

Exactly, chessvibes.com is the world number one! :)

" In the next game he got nothing with White in an Anti-Marshall and already offered a draw at move 22."

No, it was Breyer system, one of "proper" Ruy Lopez variations.

Ah, of course, got confused by the move order. Thx, corrected.

@jan van der marel on August 31st, 2010 08:46
Right. So if the cameras would have pointed to the floor, we couldn't have criticised that either, as it would still be better than no cameras!?

why should there be? anand beat topalov in the wcc match; carlsen won a 2 game rapid match. how do they compare?

Did not Anand get half a point more if all games were counted?

The lighting and camera angles were lousy. Why did the players accept lighting that threw long shadows from the pieces? The stage seemed stark and dark - not welcoming at all.

Grubby championship, if we go by the video.

Carlsen should not let a rapid match (2 games only) victory over Anand go to his head. Anand has proven he can step up his level in matches, Carlsen should have no doubt that if he makes it to a match with Anand it will take all his skill to beat him.

Some people will always be very unhappy about Carlsen being the best player in the world, must hurt to see him show it again and again every time he plays :-)

The webcam coverage was great; critics about a lack of close-ups are ridiculous. I know tournaments where they don't have any webcam coverage. In fact, I know a lot.

Great to see Carlsen concentrating only on the board, and not being interested in his opponents. A lot of chess players see chess as a personal battle.

Nice to see Hammer thinking: shall I accept her hand??

Very nice little tournement. I enjoyed it a lot!

Congratulations to Carlsen for beating Anand but boo to all those people who will take any minor victory to mean that Carlsen is the strongest in the world. Wake up, it's a 2 game rapid match. Also, have you forgotten that Carlsen had 2 losing positions against Hammer and was very lucky to win one of those after blundering like an amateur? I like Carlsen and I like Anand but I don't like those people who try and rate one over the other on such poor evidence.

I loved the close up of the boards. Seeing the hesitations and also being able to follow the game was excellent. I agree there should have been a better headshot angle, they seemed to have one from behind but they rarely used it. I would add that another tiny webcam pointed at the clock would have been nice.

The overhead close-up of the board was used in TV coverage of Kasparov - Karpov 1990 in France and I've never seen it again. It can give so much information about the state of mind of the players (I remember one blunder of Kasparov's where he pushed a pawn in Karpov's time trouble was so obviously the result of adrenaline once you saw him actually make the move). This side angle also worked, I watched about half the games like that and it was just like being there kibitzing.

Just an observation that if only one was available I'd rather have the angle they used than a wider one where you just saw the players, like in Anand - Topalov in Sofia (which to be sure was also really useful). But we're seeing more live coverage so no doubt experimentation will continue.

I will only be convinced of Carlson's superiority after he has qualified as world championship contender, defeats the reigning world champion in a classical (not a two game mini exhibition rapid) match and then remains at the top over a ten, fifteen, twenty year period.
Time will tell what Magnus Carlson is made of. So, why don't you cats back off all the hype, let him prove himself.

Who is Magnus Carlson??

@ reality check: It's luck, it's hype, etc :-) Carlsen is the best player in the world and that won't change if he loses the knockout, just like Kasparov was the best player in the world in spite of failing to win an event now and then. But it isn't difficult to look at the results over the last year and realise that Carlsen is #1 right now.

@fgdfd
You appear to be another deprived, irrational, helpless soul. We leave you with a quote from Hermann Hesse: “Auf einfache Wege schickt man nur die schwachen."
Of course, it is your right to be simple minded. Enjoy yourself.

@ reality check

Thanks! I especially appreciate that you have understood that Carlsen only can be the best player at the moment if he stays top ten for fifteen or twenty years after that. :-)

Oops, that should have been "remains at the top over a ten, fifteen, twenty year period". Not many players do that, Fischer and Morphy were a the top for a few years and were still quite appreciated. But that's enough for me on the subject.

Is it still possible somewhere to see those videos?

@fdgfd
The undisputed World Chess Champion title holder, Viswanathan Anand, is number one, numero uno, nummer eins at this very moment irregardless of the arbitrary rating system you employ Elo, Ingol, USCF, Live, etc. to belittle his crown. Everyone else, including Magnus Carlson, is just a challenger. A “wanna-be" if i may.
Remember this, Anand doesn't need Elo, he's the World Chess Champion; an active world champion at that.
I don't think he'll be ducking and dodgeing opponents like the late great Garry Kasparov. So don't worry Magnus may very well get the chance to show the world what he's made of.

I'm happy for Carlsen, but i was kind of rooting for M.C. Hammer.

Both Anand and Carlsen are wonderful players. To ask who will win if they played a WC match today is obviously a hypothetical question. Even if one believes Carlsen has the better chances, he still has to go through the candidates cycle, beat the other players, and then beat Anand. Without it, he cannot be called the world champion, and as strong as he is, it is not certain that he will be able to do that in the next cycle.

Its a pity the finals were just two games, when the prelims were so elaborate with double round robin (actually the prelims alone can stand as event and enough to decide a winner). Carlsen lost a game to hammer in prelims, Anand lost one in the finals. It does not say anything about who is better. It only says that Carlsen won this final event. Thats it.

Can't wait to the candidates match...

What a wonderful exercise match this has been. I really found it quite exhilarating especially with the informal Anand-Carlsen competition bouncing all over these posts.

Like juanefren said, I cannot wait for the candidates match to begin.

Bring in Topalov and Kramnik for more fireworks and Kamsky (IMO) as a wildcard.

Is there a final line-up already?

reality choke is trolling, of course. Following his logic reality chocke will only be convinced of Anand's superiority if/when Anand remains at the top over a ten, fifteen, twenty year period.

Yes, but Anand has been top 3 for the last 15 years, more or less. Magnus has been there for less than two.

It's like comparing Fischer and Spassky in 1970. Fischer at that time had never won a candidate tournament, let alone world champion title, but won almost every tournament he took part in and had higher rating than Spassky.

Personally, I would agree with Karpov and Kasparov for their saying that world champion should prove his superiority by winning every tournament he plays in. But ok, those guys were from another planet, whereas Anand is only human...

rogge, it's certainly possible to only see someone as superior if he dominates the field for a certain amount of time, be it Anand or Carlsen. It's not that r-check is trolling, it's just that you are being rude and an intolerant know-it-all.

Karpov didn't have to play Fisher when he was dominant from 1975-1985, and Kasparov was not at his peak during that time. Please do not compare Karpov to Kasparov or Anand!!!

Do you know where does Topalov get his ELO from??? he never plays the big ones like Larsen, Anand, etc, etc,

S: thanks, I succeeded copying reality choke then (intentionally misspelling, + he is a rude besserwisser).

Anand, of course, is a great champion and one of my favourite players. But the last 50 years only Kasparov (and maybe Karpov) remained at the top for 10-20 years. "Top" in this context is not top 3 , but #1.

Who gives a shait if Carlsen is still number one in twenty years?? The earth may have been struck by a meteorite by that time...

I could add that Anand is one of my favourite players too, even more than Carlsen in fact. It's just so fascinating with all these people that hate seeing Carlsen do well so much that you can almost see how they jump on their chairs in anger in front of their keyboards as soon as someone praises his results, or, the most forbidden thought of all, hint at his maybe being the best player in the world right now. :-) Carlsen is obviously not the World Champion and maybe he never will be, but he is still the best player in the world at the moment. He naturally doesn't need to be number 1 for 15 or 20 years to be number 1 now.

*sigh* I wish there were an "ignore function" here or even a "nonsense filter" ...

When Fischer stopped, Karpov was the best player with a margin, won almost everything. But somehow many said that Fischer was the better player...

Also in other sports, eg Sergey Bubka was the absolute best, but hasn't had many olympic medals.

@ vimapa

Topalov's latest tournaments have been a match against Anand (lost in the final game), Linares (that he won) and Nanjing where he was second behind Carlsen.

I find Carlsen's rise quite exciting, and the Fischer vs Spassky analogy is a good one. The frustration is when rating is seen as the absolute mark of best player, when instead that distinction is settled in a championship match. Although a rating clearly has predictive value, it is still a measure of play against a large and varied field of opponents: remember Topalov boasting that his 50 points put him in a different class from Kramnik, yet the match showed a different result.

It may have been seen in the storm brewing, but we couldn't say Fischer was the best player in the world until he beat Spassky.

Carlsen too will have his day, and I hope he will then hold on to his crown for a good long time.

@ mdamien

But was Euwe the best player in the world in 1936 or Kramnik the best player in the world in 2005? One can't just look at the previous title match against one opponent to decide who is the best player in the world at any given time.

Topalov has already experience of wcc.

Its difficult for carlesn to beat kramnik and topa in the candidate match.

Does anybody even think that carlsen will be able to defeat kramnik?

@yump: Remember how Kramnik won the WCC title from Kasparov, and Garry was able to beat Kramnik in their matches _after_ the championship match? (I do not know the percentages though.)

_Anything_ can happen once Carlsen faces his opponents for the candidates match.

@rogge; so "reality" may actually think that only Kasparov and Karpov have proven to be superior to all others since the 80's. That's a point of view that could be defended I guess.

"But was Euwe the best player in the world in 1936 or Kramnik the best player in the world in 2005?"

While Kramnik's 2005 should better be forgotten, Euwe was certainly one of the viable candidates for the title "best of 1936". It was quite an interregnum back then, and nobody was clearly above others.

@S: I wouldn't know, "chuck" will have to answer that himself ;) Anyway, sometimes it's not what you say but how you say it.

Karpov and Kasparov *did* dominate their rivals over a long period of time. The only current player capable of doing something similar is Carlsen, imho. Still some mountains to climb, of course.

@chessrobot: Kasparov's career score against Kramnik (from chessgames.com, including rapid and blitz games) is +22=79-21 - not exactly domination in their head-to-head games. After the WCh match, he won one classical game in Astana 2001 when he could finally tear down the Berlin Wall, the rest were draws.

Maybe you mean that Kasparov had better tournament results and (hence) kept a higher rating? But Kramnik's victory _in a match_ actually wasn't that surprising or 'accidental' ... .

@fgdfd

I see your point, but yes I would consider Euwe the best player in the world in 1936 and Kramnik the best in 2005. It's a matter of definitions. I call the standing world champion the best player in the world, and the only games that really matter are world championship games. By that measure, Leko in 2004 was technically equal to Kramnik, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Sure, Kramnik was sick and playing like crap in 2005. Morphy was hung over after a night of partying in those first games against Harrwitz. No player's strength is constant, so the question is how long an interval between championship matches is acceptable. Historically, a defense every three or four years is deemed acceptable.

@Thomas: I was hoping that Kasparov's wins against Kramnik were much higher than the losses. I cannot use my original example to argue my point about accurately predicting the outcome of the Kramnik-Carlsen and Topalov-Carlsen matches.

@fgdfd

Shirov did prove that he was better than Kramnik in 1998, in the only way to prove such a thing: a match of reasonable length. After winning the crown, Kramnik's first challenger should have been Shirov to settle that question. I'm not saying it was the case, but surely it is (and was) an imperfect system if champions can duck rightful challengers, so an organizing body like FIDE is required in theory.

Our key difference of opinion it seems is that you are looking to say who is the best "at the moment," and I don't think that's a greater measure of superiority than holding the world championship title. Anyone who loses a game will have to admit that his opponent was better than he was at that moment. There's a good chance that Kramnik would have lost a match if he had played in 2005; by saying this, I acquiesce to the idea that there were players at that "moment" who were probably stronger. A champion shouldn't have to constantly prove himself at our modern pace, but within reason when he's ready to defend the title.

Your alternative of just looking at rating is a different measure and a different definition of "best." That's fine, but I prefer the tradition of chess: like boxing, you don't say you're the best until you step in the ring with the current champion.

The thing I don't get with the reasoning that Kramnik proved that he was the best player in the world in 2002 and 2005 through the match against Kasparov 2000, is why Shirov didn't prove that he was better than Kramnik in 2002 by beating him in 1998?! That is, Kramnik was better than not only Kasparov every year in the 2001-2005 period, but also better than Shirov, and all other players, regardless of the actual results during all these years (or in 1998).

In Carlsen's case, Anand is supposed to have proved that he is better than Carlsen at the moment by winning the last game against Topalov. If Topalov instead had won the last game against Anand it would have been he who had proved that he currently is a better player than Carlsen. The only way for Carlsen to be the best player right now is to have won the Candidates in 2007, to begin with.

So proved tha Carlsen is the next World Chess champion!

@chessrobot: Well, your point is still valid for a potential, indeed rather likely match (candidates semifinal) between Carlsen and Kramnik. Even recently (2009-2010), Kramnik has an even score or a slight plus against Carlsen. Carlsen dominates many players nowadays - including Topalov in head-to-head score - but not Kramnik. Anand has decent scores against many players, but not against Aronian - which may be irrelevant now, but would have been an issue if he had lost his match against Topalov.

To return to the main discussion: Match and tournament play are different things. Carlsen currently dominates tournament play but still has to prove himself in matches - not that we can blame him, he didn't get the chance so far (after becoming "Carlsparov"). Anand recently focused on his match against Topalov, which affected quantitiy and quality of his tournament play.

During some periods in the past, the best match and the best tournament player were one and the same person. At the moment this is not the case, so all I would conclued is that Anand and Carlsen are both brilliant players - unclear who is the more brilliant one, and a two-game rapid match is IMO not even a tiebreaker.

It's hard to talk about who the best match player is when almost no matches are played, Carlsen's only match was more than three years ago. So I don't think there are any best match players and best tournament players, only best players. To me Kasparov was the best player 1985-2005, then maybe Topalov 2005-06, Kramnik 2006-07, Anand 2007-09, Carlsen 2009-10.

Bamse, thanks for posting, but the link does not work.

I agree it's best to decide the world champion by a match, but only when the championship is supported by fair process of candidate tournament.

As everyone who plays chess knows, any player has his nemesis, and it's possible lower rated player beat higher rated player in a match.

Therefore, a challenger should prove his superiority not only to the reigning world champion, but also to other top players, by winning a candidate tournament, preferably in match format as well.

It is interesting Kramnik called the outcome of his match against Shirov (in 1998) "an accident". Presumably he did not believe he was "inferior" to Shirov at that time. However, for some reason, Kramnik's win over Kasprov in 2000 was "legitimate", according to his own word.

Anand answers the question of what he thinks about the world number one spot (by rating) at www.schackstudion.se/ksk/bulletin5.pdf

Agreed, challengers have to be chosen fair and timely manner. Candidate tournaments are exciting for chess. With candidate matches we get to see more matches, at least, but I don't know that it's the fairest system. It seems that the top-rated player should have a shot at the title without having to go through so many hoops. But then, if it was all about rating they'd be guarded too much and we wouldn't see as many games.

What was the deal with Kramnik and Shirov after the 2000 match? I vaguely recall some talk of a match, but was it ducking or something else?