World Chess Championship

[Freddy Flares]

Anyone keeping up with this? Boris Gelfand just won the 7th game vs Vishy Anand making it 4 - 3 to Gelfand.

The games are live on http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/ with Houdini analysis and commentators.

[curnow]

Anand - Gelfand (2012, game 8
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. f3 c5 4. d5 d6 5. e4 Bg7 6. Ne2 O-O 7. Nec3 Nh5 Novelty
8. Bg5 Bf6 9. Bxf6 exf6 10. Qd2
10… f5 11. exf5 Bxf5 12. g4 Re8+
13. Kd1 Bxb1 14. Rxb1 Qf6 ?
15. gxh5 White is better 15… Qxf3+ 16. Kc2 Qxh1 17. Qf2
[1 - 0]

game 8 lol match level
http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/live?g=20120521

[Seb]

Not really been following. How has Magnus Carlsen not won a Candidates tourney yet? Gelfand would be a huge shock, no?

[AngusD]

[AngusD]

So... a nervous kind of match as it was too short at only 12 games - as Vishy pointed out, mistakes were magnified with little chance to fight back.
But it was interesting, nonetheless, with Boris perhaps feeling a little unfortunate. He even did well in the rapidplay play-off which of course was expected to give Vishy a massive edge. As expected Boris was way behind on the clock in every game (when Vishy was a kid - when the time control was a sensible 40 moves in 2.5 hours - he famously beat a GM using just a few minutes on his clock), although in the game he should have won the factor was psychological rather than time.
Anand won't be easy to beat when he next defends (probably against one of the young guns), and assuming Gelfand will be involved in the next cycle he could spoil the party again...
AngusD

PS Vishy will have cemented his standing as India's No.2 sportsman.

[Seb]

What do you make of these penalty shootout style deciders? My idea of a world championship chess match is Karpov v Kasparov, an epic battle of attrition.

[AngusD]

Yes it's all got way too quick, from matches to actual games.
I'm not typical because I used to get into time-trouble even at the old, very long time limits but was also a blitz (and rapidplay) specialist, even opting for 24-hour blitz tournaments in France rather than traditional weekenders (I was also the British Lightning Champion, for what it's worth).
Nowadays there are a lot more errors and far fewer positional, 'grinding' wins, but I guess it's the same for everyone.
AngusD

PS Of course the infamous Gazza-Karpov marathon saw the authorities cheat in the Russian's favour...

[darrensprengers]

best comment i heard between the commentators the other day. "this defense is unusual and i cant remember it ever being used". the other guy says, clearly checking a search engine "actually its a well used defense with many examples". then a pause before adding" actually you have used it on 4 occassions".
_________________
The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing.

-- Nick "The Greek" Dandalos

[Jackdaw]

I quite like the idea of having the tie-break at the start of the match, forces the players to take a few risks during the longer games.

That said 12 games is too short for a world title match. If it's going to be a HU match then should be at least 16 games.

Personally I'd prefer a 4 player quadruple round robin tournament (4 games against each player), to include the reigning champion and three qualifiers.