Chess

[Federberg]

Very strong stuff. I really liked the game against Giri yesterday. Looks like he crushed Karjakin today too and already clinched the tournament.

lol! yesterday was almost personal. That was just cruel!

 

[Federberg]

Grischuk looks completely busted from what looked like a very drawish position from a 4, d3 Berlin. The way Magnus is hypnotising folks into patzer player right now reminds me of his play in 2012 - 2014, possibly the most frightening player of all time. Looks like he's slowly getting his mojo back. I thought that version of Magnus was done for good

 

[Federberg]

and there you go, it's over. Incredible +5 performance from Carlsen. I thought he'd lost his intimidation factor but it looks to be coming back again. The folks have to stop trying to take him on in the Sicilian. The results have been appalling. Not that that was the case today of course

 

[DarthFed]

and there you go, it's over. Incredible +5 performance from Carlsen. I thought he'd lost his intimidation factor but it looks to be coming back again. The folks have to stop trying to take him on in the Sicilian. The results have been appalling. Not that that was the case today of course

I'm actually not surprised that a match like the one with Caruana gave Carlsen a big boost. Way different than the Karjakin match which made Carlsen seem quite vulnerable. Caruana is still playing fairly strong too but he was on fire leading up to it so it's a bit different story.

 

[Federberg]

https://www.firstpost.com/sports/sh...im-to-greatest-of-all-time-title-6423431.html


Shamkir Chess 2019: Magnus Carlsen's dominance over the past decade strengthens claim to 'greatest of all time' title
Sports Paras Gudka Apr 10, 2019 17:00:48 IST


Going into the ninth and final round of Shamkir Chess 2019, World Champion Magnus Carlsen could have afforded to let his guard down and play for a draw against Alexander Grischuk. He had already won the super tournament with a round to spare. Instead, he made mincemeat of his Russian opponent in a game that didn’t even last 40 moves.

Carlsen doesn’t just win tournaments; he obliterates his opposition and lets them know who the big daddy of chess is. In this tournament alone, his seven points came from five wins and four draws! To put this into perspective, consider the fact that no other player was able to win more than two games in the same event. His complete dominance of the tournament becomes apparent when we take into account his incredible performance rating of 2988 and current live rating of 2860.8!

So far this year, Magnus has won both the tournaments he has participated in — Tata Steel Masters being the other one — and remains undefeated in 22 games since having to defend the world championship title in London in November.




While there are no doubts in most chess fans’ minds that Magnus is the strongest player in the world today, what with his defeat of Viswanathan Anand in 2014, Sergey Karjakin in 2016 and Fabiano Caruana in 2018 to remain world champion since he first became one in 2013, has he done enough to be considered the GOAT (greatest of all time)?

Let’s examine his achievements vis-à-vis those of his predecessors to try and answer this loaded question.

Highest Ever Rating

In January 2013, Magnus surpassed the highest rating of 2851 — achieved by Garry Kasparov in 1999 — after gaining 13 Elo points at the 2012 London Chess Classic to reach 2861. A month later, after a phenomenal performance at the Tata Steel tournament where he remained undefeated in 13 games, he increased that to 2872. He wasn’t done raising the bar, though. On the March 2014 FRL (FIDE Rating List), he took his personal best up a notch to 2881 after defeating Boris Gelfand, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana at the Zurich Chess Challenge. He reached his pinnacle, a rating of 2882, on the May 2014 list after a win over Vladimir Georgiev during the Norwegian Premiere League qualification tournament.


Since Magnus first achieved the number one rank in January 2010 with a rating of 2810, he has held that spot a whopping 94 times, being relegated to second place just thrice in nine years! In comparison, with the exception of Garry Kasparov, none of the other world champions from the past 50 years have come close to a rating of 2882. Viswanathan Anand’s highest of 2817 was achieved in March 2011 whereas Vladimir Kramnik’s 2817 came in October 2016. Anatoly Karpov achieved his highest of 2780 in July 1994 and Bobby Fischer’s 2785 came during his peak in April 1972.

Years as World Champion


Carlsen has now been world champion for five years since he defeated Anand in the latter’s own backyard of Chennai in November 2013. Since the world championship is held on a two-year cycle, it is safe to assume that Magnus will remain world champion till November 2020 when his next challenger will emerge from the candidates’ cycle. This means that he will have been world champion for seven years before anyone can dethrone him.

His immediate predecessor, Viswanathan Anand, held the title of World Champion for six years from September 2007 to November 2013. Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, was undisputed world champion for eight years from November 1985 to September 1993 before breaking away from FIDE with his own organisation called PCA (Professional Chess Association). Anatoly Karpov, who took over from Bobby Fischer after the latter’s brief three-year reign, ruled the chess world for an impressive ten-year period putting him firmly in the running for greatest of all time where the number of years as world champion are concerned.

Dominance of Contemporaries

Going just by his three most-recent events—the 2018 World Championship, Tata Steel Masters and the Gashimov Memorial—it is clear that his domination of contemporaries is unlike anything seen before. In fact, he has now gone undefeated in his last 50 games! How many other current players regularly facing opponents rated 2750+ can claim such a track record? Only Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer have had such enviable runs against the top Grand Masters of their time. Despite his eccentricities and theatrics, Bobby Fischer would come out on top in this category with his swashbuckling wins of several US Opens, US Championships, interzonal and international tournaments. His victory at US Championships 1963/64 with 11.0/11 and demolition of strong players like Taimanov and Larsen with a score of 6-0 leading up to the World Championship finals is something that can never be forgotten.

Conclusion

For Magnus to be considered the greatest of all time, he will have to retain the world championship for at least 10 years, i.e another 3 years and match Kasparov and Fischer’s tenacity over the board by winning more games and reducing the number of draws in tournaments and—especially—the world championship matches.

If things continue the way they are right now, it will be safe to say that the current 28-year-old Norwegian will become known as the greatest of all time by 2024.

Paras Gudka is an author for ChessBase India.

 

[Federberg]

 

[DarthFed]

https://www.firstpost.com/sports/sh...im-to-greatest-of-all-time-title-6423431.html


Shamkir Chess 2019: Magnus Carlsen's dominance over the past decade strengthens claim to 'greatest of all time' title
Sports Paras Gudka Apr 10, 2019 17:00:48 IST


Going into the ninth and final round of Shamkir Chess 2019, World Champion Magnus Carlsen could have afforded to let his guard down and play for a draw against Alexander Grischuk. He had already won the super tournament with a round to spare. Instead, he made mincemeat of his Russian opponent in a game that didn’t even last 40 moves.

Carlsen doesn’t just win tournaments; he obliterates his opposition and lets them know who the big daddy of chess is. In this tournament alone, his seven points came from five wins and four draws! To put this into perspective, consider the fact that no other player was able to win more than two games in the same event. His complete dominance of the tournament becomes apparent when we take into account his incredible performance rating of 2988 and current live rating of 2860.8!

So far this year, Magnus has won both the tournaments he has participated in — Tata Steel Masters being the other one — and remains undefeated in 22 games since having to defend the world championship title in London in November.




While there are no doubts in most chess fans’ minds that Magnus is the strongest player in the world today, what with his defeat of Viswanathan Anand in 2014, Sergey Karjakin in 2016 and Fabiano Caruana in 2018 to remain world champion since he first became one in 2013, has he done enough to be considered the GOAT (greatest of all time)?

Let’s examine his achievements vis-à-vis those of his predecessors to try and answer this loaded question.

Highest Ever Rating

In January 2013, Magnus surpassed the highest rating of 2851 — achieved by Garry Kasparov in 1999 — after gaining 13 Elo points at the 2012 London Chess Classic to reach 2861. A month later, after a phenomenal performance at the Tata Steel tournament where he remained undefeated in 13 games, he increased that to 2872. He wasn’t done raising the bar, though. On the March 2014 FRL (FIDE Rating List), he took his personal best up a notch to 2881 after defeating Boris Gelfand, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana at the Zurich Chess Challenge. He reached his pinnacle, a rating of 2882, on the May 2014 list after a win over Vladimir Georgiev during the Norwegian Premiere League qualification tournament.


Since Magnus first achieved the number one rank in January 2010 with a rating of 2810, he has held that spot a whopping 94 times, being relegated to second place just thrice in nine years! In comparison, with the exception of Garry Kasparov, none of the other world champions from the past 50 years have come close to a rating of 2882. Viswanathan Anand’s highest of 2817 was achieved in March 2011 whereas Vladimir Kramnik’s 2817 came in October 2016. Anatoly Karpov achieved his highest of 2780 in July 1994 and Bobby Fischer’s 2785 came during his peak in April 1972.

Years as World Champion


Carlsen has now been world champion for five years since he defeated Anand in the latter’s own backyard of Chennai in November 2013. Since the world championship is held on a two-year cycle, it is safe to assume that Magnus will remain world champion till November 2020 when his next challenger will emerge from the candidates’ cycle. This means that he will have been world champion for seven years before anyone can dethrone him.

His immediate predecessor, Viswanathan Anand, held the title of World Champion for six years from September 2007 to November 2013. Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, was undisputed world champion for eight years from November 1985 to September 1993 before breaking away from FIDE with his own organisation called PCA (Professional Chess Association). Anatoly Karpov, who took over from Bobby Fischer after the latter’s brief three-year reign, ruled the chess world for an impressive ten-year period putting him firmly in the running for greatest of all time where the number of years as world champion are concerned.

Dominance of Contemporaries

Going just by his three most-recent events—the 2018 World Championship, Tata Steel Masters and the Gashimov Memorial—it is clear that his domination of contemporaries is unlike anything seen before. In fact, he has now gone undefeated in his last 50 games! How many other current players regularly facing opponents rated 2750+ can claim such a track record? Only Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer have had such enviable runs against the top Grand Masters of their time. Despite his eccentricities and theatrics, Bobby Fischer would come out on top in this category with his swashbuckling wins of several US Opens, US Championships, interzonal and international tournaments. His victory at US Championships 1963/64 with 11.0/11 and demolition of strong players like Taimanov and Larsen with a score of 6-0 leading up to the World Championship finals is something that can never be forgotten.

Conclusion

For Magnus to be considered the greatest of all time, he will have to retain the world championship for at least 10 years, i.e another 3 years and match Kasparov and Fischer’s tenacity over the board by winning more games and reducing the number of draws in tournaments and—especially—the world championship matches.

If things continue the way they are right now, it will be safe to say that the current 28-year-old Norwegian will become known as the greatest of all time by 2024.

Paras Gudka is an author for ChessBase India.

I can't take him serious after saying Kasparov was champion for 8 years and acting like he gave up the title when he broke off. Kasparov was champion for 15 years and 5 defenses and mostly #1 for 20 years. Also I don't think it's at all accurate to say Carlsen has been the most dominant player of his contemporaries and I don't hold that against him as it is naturally much harder to dominate now than even 20 years ago.

All said Carlsen still has a long ways to go but he has a good chance. I hope he doesn't get it, nothing against him as he is phenomenal but Garry is my idol.

 

[Federberg]

I can't take him serious after saying Kasparov was champion for 8 years and acting like he gave up the title when he broke off. Kasparov was champion for 15 years and 5 defenses and mostly #1 for 20 years. Also I don't think it's at all accurate to say Carlsen has been the most dominant player of his contemporaries and I don't hold that against him as it is naturally much harder to dominate now than even 20 years ago.

All said Carlsen still has a long ways to go but he has a good chance. I hope he doesn't get it, nothing against him as he is phenomenal but Garry is my idol.

I just posted it as I thought it was appropriate for this thread. I have no personal skin in the game, and I agree he was a bit... liberal with the facts. I'm a fan of both Gary and Magnus. I would probably put someone like Morozevich as my favourite player. But generally I tend to go game by game rather than attach loyalty to a specific super GM

 

[DarthFed]

I just posted it as I thought it was appropriate for this thread. I have no personal skin in the game, and I agree he was a bit... liberal with the facts. I'm a fan of both Gary and Magnus. I would probably put someone like Morozevich as my favourite player. But generally I tend to go game by game rather than attach loyalty to a specific super GM

I wouldn't say I'm overly loyal to Kasparov but just the preference that he's a big part of what got me into chess and I do just want him to remain GOAT . Chess isn't like tennis to me, I'm not wound up about the potential of Carlsen passing Kasparov. I enjoy the different styles, and I wish like hell I could play like the positional wizards of today and the past. I always say if you want to learn to enjoy chess as a beginner look at Kasparov's games as well as Tal and Morphy. But if you want to learn how to play look at Karpov and Capablanca.

 

[Federberg]

I wouldn't say I'm overly loyal to Kasparov but just the preference that he's a big part of what got me into chess and I do just want him to remain GOAT . Chess isn't like tennis to me, I'm not wound up about the potential of Carlsen passing Kasparov. I enjoy the different styles, and I wish like hell I could play like the positional wizards of today and the past. I always say if you want to learn to enjoy chess as a beginner look at Kasparov's games as well as Tal and Morphy. But if you want to learn how to play look at Karpov and Capablanca.

I couldn't agree more! Although I would probably put Morphy in the Karpov and Capablanca group. His games are brilliant, but also very educational about how to punish bad chess, and of course also extremely enjoyable to follow.

I love watching Carlsen games too to be honest, but sometimes they can be incomprehensible to me. He's creative in a way that's extremely impressive in this modern computer age...

here are a couple of examples...


and...

 

[DarthFed]

I couldn't agree more! Although I would probably put Morphy in the Karpov and Capablanca group. His games are brilliant, but also very educational about how to punish bad chess, and of course also extremely enjoyable to follow.

I love watching Carlsen games too to be honest, but sometimes they can be incomprehensible to me. He's creative in a way that's extremely impressive in this modern computer age...

here are a couple of examples...


and...

Totally agree about Carlsen. That recent Giri game the Qh5 looked so damn awkward and even f4 looked bad "on the surface" but it put a lot of pressure on Giri right away. Incredible early recognition that he could launch a dangerous attack on Giri's kingside.

That is an interesting way of looking at Morphy but I like it. Certainly he doesn't get enough credit for his positional abilities as we always just think of his brilliant tactical crushes. But he was very hard to beat in a period that had pretty few draws.

My favorite dream matchup would be Morphy vs Capablanca followed closely by Kasparov-Fischer. Yes, even Morphy just being transported 50 years into the future without the additional opening knowledge. Capa certainly would have tamed him more times than not, but it'd have been awesome.

 

[Federberg]

I would love to see peak Fischer against peak Kasparov, Karpov and Carlsen over a 16 match series. I have absolutely no idea who would come out on top. Although from a match up point of view I have a suspicion that Carlsen would be the best equipped to beat him. And that's not because I think Carlsen is the best of the lot by the way, I just think the match up would favour Carlsen for some reason

 

[DarthFed]

I would love to see peak Fischer against peak Kasparov, Karpov and Carlsen over a 16 match series. I have absolutely no idea who would come out on top. Although from a match up point of view I have a suspicion that Carlsen would be the best equipped to beat him. And that's not because I think Carlsen is the best of the lot by the way, I just think the match up would favour Carlsen for some reason

I kind of think Kasparov would have been tough for Fischer both style-wise and mentally. Both are/were egomaniacs but obviously Fischer was less balanced and facing a brilliant, young, super-aggressive fierce as all hell Russian probably would've made him explode. Anyways we were robbed of Fischer-Karpov at the very least, that'd have been spectacular as well.

 

[DarthFed]

Whoever thought up puzzle rush on chess.com is brilliant...and I owe whoever it is a kick to the dick. Damn thing keeps track of # of attempts. I'm almost at 700 in less than 2 months and even if mine average about 4 minutes out of the 5 total that puts me at about 2 full days of my life gone.

I'd imagine it's been a huge boost to chess.com's paid membership as you need to pay to get unlimited puzzle rushes as well as other benefits. And I've seen people with many thousands of attempts, some with 10,000 + believe it or not.

All joking aside it is probably the most fun I've had playing in a long time. I've probably played 10 hours of puzzle rush for every hour of actual games.

 

[Federberg]

Whoever thought up puzzle rush on chess.com is brilliant...and I owe whoever it is a kick to the dick. Damn thing keeps track of # of attempts. I'm almost at 700 in less than 2 months and even if mine average about 4 minutes out of the 5 total that puts me at about 2 full days of my life gone.

I'd imagine it's been a huge boost to chess.com's paid membership as you need to pay to get unlimited puzzle rushes as well as other benefits. And I've seen people with many thousands of attempts, some with 10,000 + believe it or not.

All joking aside it is probably the most fun I've had playing in a long time. I've probably played 10 hours of puzzle rush for every hour of actual games.

yup. All of them would be fun to see

 

[Federberg]

Jeepers.. Magnus grinding everyone to dust at the moment

 

[DarthFed]

Jeepers.. Magnus grinding everyone to dust at the moment

Man! Those were brilliant wins. I don't know how anyone would find that chess boring.

 

[Federberg]

Poor Vincent Keymer. What a brutal series of games to play. Carlsen, then Anand, then Caruana. World Champion, ex- World Champion, World Championship runner up. If there's any more brutal series of opponents for a 14yr old looking for a GM norm please tell me

 

[Federberg]

Magnus missing the win today is comforting. Otherwise I would start to wonder if he was the son of Alpha zero!

 

[Federberg]

The absolute brutality with which Magnus is playing at the moment. I think this is the scariest he's ever been. Made mincemeat of Svidler today. Wow...