"Kramnik defeated Carlsen with Black in what he said was one of his best games ever" [this report]
"Vladimir Kramnik speaks about his 'best game ever' " [the tournament homepage]
"This game FEELS [emphasis added] like the best I have ever played!" (Kramnik's actual words)

I think Peter Doggers and whoever is responsible for the Corus homepage are missing (or hiding/neglecting) an important detail: Kramnik spoke while he was still under adrenaline [from today's game, not from yesterday's visit to the Red Light District, hehe], and the game "feels" like his best ever also because of its sportive importance. There may be some subtle irony, and maybe also a reaction to the fact that Carlsen-Kramnik 1-0 from London was "hyped" as 'best game of the year 2009' (IMO an exaggeration).

Of course both games were 'good' or 'very good'. If Kramnik ever writes another book, it will certainly feature among his best games [Shirov] and most memorable games [Gelfand]. But he didn't really say it WAS his very best ever!?

Am I nitpicking? Maybe, in a way I have to defend a reputation ... :)

Optimistic me, thinking the video-game's viewer mixing tendency would be over, after round 8 being on chessvibes.com/live. (BTW, it's still there, the 8th round)
The way they are, these mixed pages are far too heavy for my computer (it stops working even while I write these words!)
Here I go again try to follow the games elsewhere. A pity.
And, BTW, Peter, I wrote you an email related to this.

Painfull loss for Carlsen

Notes:
1. That email was sent some week ago.
2. It took over 5 minutes for my previous post to be posted, so I'm just passing that torture once more just to say this. Any answer I might get, pls use other place, because I'm not coming back to this page again.

Carlsen-Kramnik is one of those games that make me admit that I don't understand anything about chess. Of course tomorrow, after having seen Kramnik's press conference, I'll understand everything again...

Whether we understand Kramnik or not, he absolutely rocks, that's for sure!

Absolutely. I'm following his games with royalistic passion.

I don't see the Twitter updates.. Does anyone else have this problem?

And there they are again.

GO Vlad!!

Answer to Ivanchuk puzzle

1. Nb5 Bb7 (1...Kb5 2.Qd3+; 1...ab5 2.Qe4! de 3.Ne5mate)
2. R*d5 B*d5
3. Nd6+
Took me 10 minutes...I bet many would find it faster.

Poor Anish, chess-wise he couldn't be beaten in that group, but now his hormones are doing him in ;-)

giri is a real gentleman :D

Reading about the excursion to the red light district Amsterdam (twitter) it doesn't surprise me that his hormones are doing him in..He wasn't the only kid star who blundered today.

By the way, did Cora solve the problem?

WOW. What a round! Corus absolutely rocks!

Carlsen-Kramnik was an amazing game (not that I understand it!) Kramnik is really back, with Pirc and other interesting chess. Carlsen's two minutes silence is also very interesting. What was in his mind really? Now Karjakin joined the chasing pack with 5.5, tied with Carlsen! My, so much great chess these days...

wasnt kramnik also a student of kasparov?
carlsen and kramnik could play a match to see who is not bad.

what was carlsens failure in this game? which bad moves?
ok catalan was bad opening choice against kramnik.

"Carlsen only needed a draw, so 1.d4 was a mistake... He should have played 1.e4"

According to Kramnik's analyse after Rh8, Qxe5 black is doing well.
According to my Rybka white has a better position after Qxe5.....

KRAMNIK IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D

Is the best Corus in living memory? What a games, I just can't wait to see the Kramnik press conference. Naka smashed with white. and so on and so on.

And agree with Buri :))

ok the big new chess engine says:) 36. Nb6 was a blunder. time trouble?
carlsen-kramnik
before move 36. white was little better.

Kramnik is probably the best actual player at least in terms of profound positional understanding of the game. The "monstrous" center of black pawns is this game, and the bishop more powerful than the rook, will be for long time remembered by chess enthusiasts. As occurred with Naka, Carlsen found himself attacking nothing....

@Ron: "Is the best Corus in living memory?"
I also vividly remember 2006, when Anand and Topalov were constantly chasing each other - in the end, both finished with 9/13 1.5 points ahead of the rest. But this edition can certainly compete ... .
BTW, 2.5/3 for the three Dutch players today - it went relatively unnoticed as they are still together at the bottom of the table.

Kramnik is approaching 2800 and might become #1 soon!

I don't know why some consider 36.Nb6 a blunder. After 34.Qe3...Bxe4 it seems the Knight has nowhere to go and the pawn b2 is fixed and weak. With the two bishops supporting that connected pawns, sooner or later c6 will follow for example...Maybe a Computer can solve that, but it was too hard for a human to manage that restricted position under time pressure.

Carlsens position much harder to play after he takes the exchange Bxc6. In time trouble he could not find the accurate moves in a very complicated position. Nice play by Kramnik who played some good moves and kept the tension high where others have cracked against Carlsen.

Where was Kramnik when he was 19 years old ?
Even though I am a fan of Carlsen , its good to see that the "old "
players can still beat the youngsters . Kramnik is probably the best defensive player in the world . The main differense between him and Leko , is that Kramnik
also possesses a mean streak .

Kramnik is back... Forget about anyone else winning any relevant tournament where Kramnik plays... It seems his confidence and ambition are back in place. He is the deepest player around, so he will dominate for quite a while... It's not only about openings...

Always been a fan of Kramnik, also when he was young, In 1992 (?) he appeared in the Olympiad as a 17y old IM and crushed everyone in one of the best results ever. Read his piece on the Stonewall in one of Dvoretski's books, thats just so lucid, for a moment one imagines to actually understand that opening.
More than Kasparov, who believes in variations, Kramnik is a human player who is able to understand chess so deeply that his judgment is still up to the best computer analyses.

Wow, I am really beginning to appreciate the incredibly deep chess understanding of Kramnik.

Beautifully played win over Carlsen.

Kramnik is, all of a sudden, 2797 in the live ratings. Wow!

"Kramnik's actual words" - what's you source, Thomas? Because that's not what he said at the start of the press conference. Vlad's exact words were 'Visually... at the moment I can say that it's maybe one of my best games actually I ever played' after which he added that computer analysis may prove otherwise. So the only point I (we all) may have missed is that very first word visually; Kramnik obviously liked the game very much from an esthetic point of view.

Obviously I don't know about the press conference because you didn't put up the video yet :) - I don't expect you to be THAT fast but I hope it won't take several days this time ... . So here I could only nitpick about "at the moment" (adrenaline coming in again?) and/or "maybe".

I was referring to Kramnik's game analysis on the tournament homepage:
http://www.coruschess.com/gameanalysis.php?year=2010&game=9

Nakamura at least lost playing Black.

I too have followed the C-K game live and although it was a nice game, I wasn't especially fascinated by it. After all it was decided by a serious, one (few) move blunder in time trouble gambling. I don't think K REALLY thinks it was one of his best games ever. It is just part of the increasing tension between these two (see e.g. C's FB status before the game) plus, whoever says whatever, imo there is an ongoing symbolic K-K battle subsurface.

I noticed Karjakin creeped up the table and is still unbeaten. I wonder how he will fair against the current top three in the next rounds.

naka lost playing white

"Nakamura wanted to win but it was a mistake... He should not have played this one"

I read some comp evaluations about Kramnik's game here. I also was checking the game with Fritz 12, so I give an advice: before talk about any white advantage after he took the exchange let the machine think for some ten minutes at least :)

Kramnik will win this tournament.......! Hang on, deep understanding of chess is more important than youth

Great games today.
Carlsen was surprised by Kramnik's 13. move, should have put his Rook on d1 on his 18th, instead of Bh3, and got greedy on his 22nd move, when he captured h7.

A pity that it ended with a blunder - but placing the Knight on the rim didn't help much in this game.

I really enjoyed Kramnik's games in Moscow and London, and look forward to his encounter with Anand!

Carlsen is still young and inexperienced, but very exciting to follow. Excellent chess in this Corus!

1. Anand, Kramnik and Topalov are all very experienced top players, and anyone who thinks in simple populistic patterns, like new generation replacing old within some months, simply has no idea of chess.And even other older players like Nigel Short are not far from beating someone like Kramnik, who was just lucky to escape Nigels superiority in their game.

2. Many of you talk as if today a star was born or burnt, and both is plain nonsense. It was just a too risky game from Carlsen who paid for too much risk. Kramnik made some strong moves and showed his well known positional understanding in this kind of position, but not more. If he thinks that this is possibly his best game ever or something like that, I can only pity him. Carlsen's last win against him was MUCH more impressive and aesthetic than this game from my view.

3. What made Kramnik so very happy is something else and quite obvious to me: after a game in which the youngster had outplayed him positionally, bringing him into a position with pieces completely out of play, which revenge could have been sweeter than see his opponent with a useless knight on a4, finally moving with a blunder into defeat? And that with the white pieces... All comparisons are of limited value, but Kranik sometimes remeinds me of Petrosian. He is a counter player with high positional understanding and no fear from tactical stress. Carlsen does not so much remind me of Capablanca or Karpov (as Gary suggested), but rather of Fisher. Fisher's only fault in his younger day was that he sometimes wanted too much from a position, and he suffered exactly the kind of defeats, especially against Russian players, as this game. But this could not stop his strong sides: combining an extremely skillful understanding of all kinds of positions, no matter if strategic or sharp, with an unbreakable will to find all potential of a position in any phase of the game. I know only one player with such qualities today, and the is Carlsen. He will readjust, and Kramnik will not be able to stop him (although be able to give him a hard time for quite a while).

4. It does not help Cralsen to treat him like a superstar at age 19, immedialtely after becoming no.1 in the ranking list. One day he is adored as greates in media and chessfan commentary, the next day people find Kramnik, Anand or Topalov overwhelming. You can forget all these comments, they are worth nothing at all. And all this useless genius talk from all sides can't TALK Carlsen up a single inch: he has very hard work to do to to develop his gifts, and at the moment to "readjust" his developing skills and changing repertoire and style, as he rightly claims to do.

5. On this way there nothing will help him as much as this kind of painful defeat. It will get him working as intense as no media praise could ever do. Nothing helps an extremely gifted player as much as such a kind of defeat. Carlsen should pay Kramnik for this experience. Fisher cursed the Russians, but in a way they heped him with the same kind of service ;-)

p.s. sorry for the typos: I typed in a hurry and found no edit function afterwards ;-)

when is kramnik's press-conference going to be here?i can't wait..

Carlsen is a very good player and he will be one of the best for a long period, but certainly he is not as good as people think he is. The fact that he is only 19 is relative: with all assistance and information players get today, it is absolutely normal that a player reaches its best at a very young age. It is not possible to say that he will still improve .
Kramnik with 16 was also one of the best in the world and without computer help.
Karpov, although already a strong player even for soviet standard, took chess seriously only when he was 14-15, and 5 years later won (with Stein) one of the strongest tournaments ever, where basically only Fischer did not participate. These are, in my opinion, more impressive results than Carlsen´s.

@machadov

Yes carlsen lost one game and suddenly...No more carlsen!to hell with him!!lol.This is just too childish.He is one of the very best players we have and we r lucky to have him. He just made a blunder in really serious time trouble against another great player we have and that's all. Games like this is like battles between giants!all results possible and nothing to be ashamed of..(except his note in his facebook status:))

Kramnik is already #3 in the live ratings with four more games to go at Corus, of which he has two Whites and two Blacks. It would not take much for him to become numero uno again if he continues to play like he did today and yesterday. Go Kramnik go!!

@Jimknopf: So, to sum up, pretty much everybody is saying nonsense about pretty much everything. I guess we should all be grateful that you dropped by to explain how things really are and will be.

I mean... Nakamura at least lost playing Black... against Big Vlad.

It is incredible how can Kramnik stand at +4 after completely lost positions against Short and Tiviakov.

Come on guys

Nb6 was never 'just a blunder'. Take your eyes away from your engines and look at the position on the chess board! White's rooks are very passive, while the knight on a4 speaks for itself... Facing a very strong bishop pair, combined with a visually impressive pawn centre, it was completely clear to me that Kramnik would win, even before Nb6. Such positions are impossible for White to play in time trouble. Carlsen's move is in fact very natural, trying to bring his knight and rook inyo play...

@machadov:
MC is...
-One of history's youngest GMs ever, despite being 8 when first introduced to the game.
-The youngest ever to play the candidate matches
-The youngest ever world no. 1.
-The youngest ever to pass 2800 and only the fifth ever.
-Blitz WC as the youngest WC of chess, beating all top four players 2-0

Now he lost a game, and you feel like venting your bitterness and dissatisfaction with him. He has stopped evolving, he is overrated...blah blah. Chess is more competitive than ever. To be at number 1 now is perhaps much harder than ever before, and yet for all he is accomplishing, more and more every year, you take this moment (after a loss against one of the game's best) to tell us that it is all about to turn around for him? It was all a hype?

Trivia:

Who's the author of the words:

"I will crush Kramnik like a bug"?

You?

“I will crush Kramnik like a bug”

-->> Silvio Danailov??

kramnik is in good shape defeating carlsen is a big turn around in the standings

@Jimknopf: I also suggested (and IMO it is obvious and should go without saying) that Kramnik's comments were "under adrenaline": soon after the game, also still remembering his previous loss against Carlsen - however, that was his only loss against Carlsen at classical time control in 2009. And maybe he was also aware of the "I will crush Kramnik like a bug" thing - which is/was from Carlsen's Facebook page (possibly by his ghostwriter Kasparov?). Too bad noone asked him at the press conference ... .
Concerning the game itself, what would be more than "strong moves and ... well known positional understanding"? Yes, Nb6 was a blunder but clearly not an "unforced error": if you don't find a good move you end up playing a bad one, particularly in time trouble - this happens at all levels. And both time trouble and the blunder were a logical, maybe unavoidable consequence of the previous play.

@machadov, merlin, Rothschild: Noone said that Carlsen isn't a very talented world-top player, too much was put into machadov's words IMO. I guess he simply referred to the hype around him after announcing his collaboration with Kasparov and winning Nanjing. We had comments such as "now in a tournament with Carlsen everyone else can only fight for second place", "Magnus will soon cross 2900 or 3000", etc. . Truth seems to be that he is still at most primus inter pares, certainly not as dominant (yet) as Kasparov was in his prime. This might change in one or two years, but Kramnik also said "Giri is coming" ... .

Praising a player into heaven after one or two (tournament) wins and then putting him back to - well not hell, but off the throne - also happens to others, e.g. Nakamura. It also happened to Kramnik after his narrow escapes against Tiviakov and Short - though IMO it takes not only help/mistakes from the opponent, but also some of one's own class to save such objectively lost positions.
Should every game be declared won immediately if the Rybka evaluation goes to +2 or +3 ? For one thing, there would be practical problems because engines still cannot correctly assess some endings, e.g. with opposite-colored bishops.

Again @merlin: Don't ask Peter Doggers to put the press conference up at 4:00AM :) I hope you still had a good nights sleep, but I guess you are in another timezone ... .

@thomas
Yes, it is understandable that Kramnik was "under adrenaline" and very happy after the game. And yes, only players with resourceful defensive skills meet luck more often than others. Carlsen has profited from that as well.

"Praising a player into heaven after one or two (tournament) wins and then putting him back to – well not hell, but off the throne – also happens to others, e.g. Nakamura."

This was my main point. I just don't like opportunistic talk from people who are always with "the greatest", as soon as one day or one game gives an opportunity. And I don't like talking people into heavenly geniuses one day and into medocre losers the other day. Both has nothing to do with reality.

Both Kramnik and Carlsen are great players, and we enjoy many of their games. If I prefer Carlsen's kind of play, that's just a matter of taste, and I would never talk as if he could easily crush everyone else. Top chess has become a very narrow area, and any of the top ten (and some more) can beat anyone else casually. Still I am convinced that Carlsen is the most gifted of the actual top players, but of course that's just an impression based on games and I can't really know. Time will tell, but I would bet on Carlsens further impressive development anytime.

By the way, I don't find any sentence like "crushing Kramnik like a bug" in Carlsens blogs. Where is it supposed to be? Sentences like this are just stupid, no matter from whom.

P.S. Calling Nb6 a bug is nothing debatable: it just was one, like Carlsen confirmed himself.

It does not, however, mean that Carlsen would have had an easy position otherwise. His position was very uncomfortable, but not as lost as after Nb6.

@Thomas: If he was referring to the hype after Naijing, then he should have said so, but didn't. He made a post where he somehow presented Magnus' accomplishemnts as somewhat invalid as he (as the only one?) has had this magical thing called a computer and has been working harder from a younger age. The truth is that he didn't get into the game early. He played his first tournament for kids ever at the same time when Karjakin was second for Ponomariov and had already established himself as the "great new hope". He has also frequently been criticized for not working as hard and systematically as f.i. Kasparov, who delved deeper into opening theory and other theory than perhaps any of his peers.
If his continuous record-breaking achievements must be reevaluated after every loss, then I smell envy and personal dissatisfaction. To excuse others whose records he's beaten on all sorts of grounds is, to me, dishonest and truly neglects the fact that chess is harder than ever, and that there are more than one computer going around ;-)