Chess - the world in black and white

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Ok, game three was pretty uneventful and Team Fabiano has indeed patched that hole from game 1.

Game 4 we finally have 1.c4 and a proper English. I will switch on the live commentary shortly, but I am not sure what the point of Carlsen's Re1 was. Usually in those kind of positions you put your rooks on the c- and d-file or one rook on the b-file to get that push b5 going (ide exchange pawns on the queen side, leave black with an isolated pawn there and eventually win that pawn. So Re1 does very little in that respect. The only thing I can somehow imagine might be that Carlsen thinks of pushing f4 at some point, but I am not sure about this idea.

[Rorshach]

The interesting part now will be to see if Team Fabi did indeed blunder some preparation.

Otherwise, the last two games were rather uneventful.

[davos]

After coming out swinging in the first game, it appears Carsen is now willing to grind things out.  Just like working down a small but meaningful advantage into a winning end game, he knows that if it comes down the tie break, that being stronger in the blitz and rapid formats gives him a meaningful advantage.  It will be interesting to see at what point Fabi takes a real swing to try to win a game and prevent that from happening.  There are going to be fireworks at some point and it almost has to be from Fabi (unless of course Fabi makes an error that Carlsen jumps on).  

[davos]

Game six was insane, with Carlsen finally taking Fabi on in the Petrov.  A crazy opening that was half Knight moves, solid middle game that ended with an piece sac give Carlsen a 3 pawn edge, and a intense end game in which Fabi apparently (according to a super computer) missed a 30 move forced mate that no one can quite understand.  Still a draw but by far the best game of the match.  Game seven was a solid, interesting, but uneventful draw.  Fabi is playing well, Carlsen  doesn't seem as sharp as he has been, but I still give the edge to the defending champ.  

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yes, but if 4.Nd3 is the extent of Carlsen's prep against the Petroff, then Fabiano has very little to worry about. If you want to play for an opening advantage, you have to go for one of the Main Lines. Either with

1.e4 e5 2Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 etc.

or with the Shirov line. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Nxc3 etc. which is the more fashionable approach atm.

Those lines are rather dry and a lot of that is trying squeeze blood out of a stone for white, with rather long lines, but 4.Nd3 is not the sort of thing that gets you anything.

[BigFatCoward]

Has a world championship ever been entirely drawn games? Is Carlsen playing for draws due to his superiority in quicker formats? 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Has a world championship ever been entirely drawn games? Is Carlsen playing for draws due to his superiority in quicker formats? 

No, I don't think so - at least I can't think of any.

Remember that those rapid - blitz tie-breaks are a rather new thing, and a draw meant the champion retained his title (Champion's privilege), so there was an increasing pressure for the challenger to get things going (and take more risks) the longer the draught went on.

No, I don't think that was the original plan. Carlsen came out swinging in the first couple of games, esp. Game 1 will probably haunt him for a while, should he lose the title here. Then at some point the momentum swung and Caruana found his footing, so you can argue, that Carlsen is a bit more fortunate that the score is still level. And generally speaking, playing for a draw is usually a good receipe for disaster. As it's tempting to play too passively, and as a result to just drift into worse positions. Yes, there are openings (cough Petroff cough) that are definately aimed to secure a draw with the black pieces. But that's more part of an overall strategy (draw with black play for a win with white, ask Kramnik for details on how to employ it succesfully).

Yes, Carlsen is better at short formats, but to rely on that is playing with fire.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Ok, Carlsen tried one of the main lines against the Petroff with 5.Nc3, and it looks like a fairly comfortable draw for Caruana.

On to game 12 with Caruana with the white pieces, and then presumably the tie breaks.

 

In other news, on the women side of things, Ju Wenjun has defended her title in that silly knock out format. Not really surprised by that, as I think Ju Wenjun is atm the top female player (apart from Hou Yifan (obviously), who just isn't interested in women's chess anymore).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Really? Carlsen is actually trying to grind out a win from this opposite colour bishop ending? He is never ever gonna win that in a milion years.

Hell, I am confident, that even I can hold that position as black against Magnus.

[Rorshach]

Couldn't understand what he was trying - but then I wasn't watching either - I was at a wedding. 

Saw the position with bishops and six pawns each at some point and thought "oh, well, 11 draws". They more or less could have drawn it there..

[davos]

Game 12 is actually kind of interesting so far.  22 moves in and only 1  pawn from each side off the board.  There is a lot of tension and a lot of complexity.   There are going to be some fireworks at some point.  Right now I like Carlsen's chances better, especially with Fabi being way down in time for having 18 moves to time control in a really involved position.  

[Plessiez]

Carlsen is obviously an incredibly strong player, but (given that) he's a pretty underwhelming world champion and really not that good a match player.  Today's game (and Saturday's) are fully in keeping with that.  

I certainly expect him to win the tiebreaks (on rating alone he's a huge favourite) but I really hope he doesn't.

[davos]

Shocked that Carlsen didn't press that position, especially given the kind of time trouble Fabi was in.  He had an attack coming that would have been hard for white to find a way through.  He's been the dominate force in chess for nearly a decade.  He's won 3 world championship matches.  You are the best player in the world with a meaningful advantage in a potentially decisive game, you almost need to play it out.  To me, he's been a great champion but he's not the player he was 4 years ago.

[Ran]

I think it was likely a psychological ploy: he basically treated the match as a blitz, won an early advantage with his rapid play despite all of Caruana's slow and careful thinking, and then turned around and despite that offered him a draw, indicating just how extremely confident he's feeling about the tiebreakers.

That's my guess, anyways. I don't buy the notion that he did it because he feared losing or had somehow managed to fail to calculate what the odds looked like when he offered the draw.

[BigFatCoward]

That's pretty much that then. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Weird match somehow.

Neither player got really anything going with the White pieces, infact it was rather the opposite as some victories with the black pieces looked more likely than anything else. Both had a chance to score full points at some point in the match, which both (quite uncharacteristically) missed. So this thing went into the tie breaks, which Carlsen then finally won.

This won't be going down as one of the better matches in WCC history imho.

Having that said congratulations to Magnus.

[davos]

It was well accepted that Magnus had the edge in the tie breakers.  I didn't expect him to just dominate Fabi like that though.  I haven't had a chance to look through analysis but Fabi may have had chances to at least tie in the first game.  Magnus just proved sharper in an end game when both were in time trouble.  Outside of that Magnus just was the better player in that format.  He was sharp, he was aggressive, and locked onto any advantage available and just kept turning.  From the light of right now, it would seem that Magnus was smart to play it safer most of the match and that Fabi needed to try to find more opportunities to press.  Carlsen well understood both his strengths and his opponents weaknesses and played the match accordingly.   The next cycle is far away, and perhaps Carlsen will slip in that time.  If he retains his form, I'm hoping that someone who is more comfortable in shorter game formats is the challenger so that Magnus can't repeat this approach with the same kind of confidence.  

[A Horse Named Stranger]

New WC cycle, so time to give this thread a push.

The World Cup is atm underway.

THe first round has already produced a fair share of upsets.

The biggest upset was of course Wojtaszek getting knocked out 2-0 by young Norwegian Christiansen. Equally surprising was Bu getting knocked out by his compatriot Xu.

Huschenbeth knocking out Naiditsch. I am all for Huschi, but I didn't think he could take out Naiditsch.

Also in the category upsets was probably yesteryear's elite player Michael Adams getting knocked out by young Indian GM Aravindh, and former Fide Champion Ponomariov getting knocked out by Russian GM Esipenko, and veteran Peruvian Cori getting swept by Indian prodigy Nihal Sarin, and also David Navara getting knocked out by Yuffa.

The second round has some really nice pairings already.

Dubov vs Firouzja (Dubov should edge this, but it's a tough task for Daniil).

Harikrishna vs Fedoseev.

Wei Yi vs. Anton (the games could be a real treat)

Yu Yangyi vs. Adhiban

Jakovenko vs Jones

Le vs Korobov

Rustam vs Shak

 

[Rorshach]

I like those second round setups.

As to Dubov vs Firouzja - that one can go either way. Dubov has more experience, and as you say, should probably edge it, but Firouzja is rising rapidly, and where his ceiling is I have no idea. Exciting times!

ETA: not really a quibble, more a small mention.. Adams is a very good player, but mostly these days he seems solid - not losing. His game was decided in the - what, fifth round - and those games are more random than the long games.

[Rorshach]

Really didn't see Naka's loss coming. His next game is going to be fireworks!