WC Match 2016 - New York 10-30 November

[Carl Hibbard]

Thrills. The white players really are finding some amusingly odd things to do with their rooks right now!

Boring already game 3 I am sorry to say.

[Graham Borrowdale]

I know the game is a bit dull, but is everyone watching Children In Need? Anyway, another R+N v R+B ending, and I can't quite be sure who might be claiming a slight edge.

[AustinElliott]

So far it is - and I never thought I would say this - making the two Carlsen-Anand matches look exciting.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Well, I thought those matches *were* quite interesting tbh

Anand-Gelfand may be a better comparison if this cat and mouse stuff carries on.......

[MartinCarpenter]

Has to be said, the way this is going is hardly to discourage Carlsen from keeping at it, even if Karjakin does save this one.
(As he may well, being as mega stubborn as he is!).

[Roger de Coverly]

Has to be said, the way this is going is hardly to discourage Carlsen from keeping at it, even if Karjakin does save this one.

Carlsen is now playing an ending with an extra pawn. A win on adjudication then for traditionalists. Otherwise it's a style of play that if both players make 20 out of 20 accurate moves, then It's a draw. Perhaps Carlsen's premise is that he will make 20/20 while his opponents will manage 19. ( Currently move 45)

[NickFaulks]

We've seen this so many times. Carlsen shuffles the pieces until his opponent dozes off, then pounces. It's supremely effective, but will people really pay money to watch it?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Except, of course, that he didn't win it - Karjakin showed what a superb defender he is.

[JustinHorton]

Well what an interesting game I seem to have missed by going to bed about midnight.

The engines don't seem to have been a lot of help, do they?

[LawrenceCooper]

Thrills. The white players really are finding some amusingly odd things to do with their rooks right now!

Boring already game 3 I am sorry to say.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/carlse ... ame-3-epic

[Mick Norris]

chess.com

[Carl Hibbard]

Thrills. The white players really are finding some amusingly odd things to do with their rooks right now!

Boring already game 3 I am sorry to say.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/carlse ... ame-3-epic

I turned it off a bit early then.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Chessbase report is good:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/newsblog-w ... 2016-11-15

Nice anecdotes from Yasser Seirawan (from move 66 onwards) about the dinner table analysis being done by Caruana, Anand, Nakamura and Topalov in Saint Louis!

[MJMcCready]

With such a long game yesterday, you wonder whether Karjakin will be full of beans and stick it to Carlsen...I fear not.

[Graham Borrowdale]

Well, Karjakin managed to hold serve by the skin of his teeth. I must admit I generally prefer watching positional struggles to flashy attacks, but I am left with the impression that this was Carlsen trying to provoke his opponent into very minor inaccuracies, so the game seemed to lack 'flow'. I guess at this level that is the only way to try to win.

The question now is whether Karjakin will have energy to try to win with white in game 4, or whether we will see another short draw, followed by Carlsen breaking through in game 5. The 3rd option, Karjakin imploding with white, would be too horrific (for him) to contemplate, but is possible too. So that's me sitting on a 3-sided fence in predicting the outcome of game 4.