WC Match 2016 - New York 10-30 November

[Brian Towers]

Carlsen's play in that game was a real puzzle. I thought conventional wisdom was that Carlsen was a much stronger favourite in a rapid or blitz tie break shoot out than in standard rate games? Surely the more draws there were the more likely he was to win? Why over press?

[Keith Arkell]

In the history of chess Karjakin is the only WC match participant with zero loses. Fact.

Which just goes to show how you can manipulate statistics to say just about anything!

I wonder whether I could make a similar claim regarding myself and all other participants of the Hastings Premier?

[Joshua Gibbs]

Which just goes to show how you can manipulate statistics to say just about anything!

I wonder whether I could make a similar claim regarding myself and all other participants of the Hastings Premier?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmDIP3Fn2Y


Just for the Record I predicted Karjakin to win from the start

[MartinCarpenter]

Carlsen's play in that game was a real puzzle. I thought conventional wisdom was that Carlsen was a much stronger favourite in a rapid or blitz tie break shoot out than in standard rate games? Surely the more draws there were the more likely he was to win? Why over press?

Perhaps because he's really used to winning games on a regular basis and he's faced 7 games without success against a slightly weaker opponent who has been very happily turning the games into basically dead draws?

Even in this game he tried to get Karjakin to commit to activity at a few points but he just dead batted it instead. It must be incredibly frustrating to play against someone doing this so well. Unbelievably so to lose to them of course!

Can't say it wasn't coming though - Carlsen also steered very close to real self inflicted trouble in his previous white game (game 5) and clean blundered in game 7 as well.

[Chris Rice]

I was at the venue for game 8 yesterday witnessing the first decisive game of the match so here’s a report on the day.

Getting off at Fulton Street was a great experience. From here you have direct access to the World Trade Centre buildings and the 9/11 Memorial. In addition, the Fulton Centre which houses the subway has an enormous mall with great places to eat and an awesome view of the Hudson river. Unfortunately, though that’s not where the venue was. Walking around five minutes to the very end of Fulton Street you find the Fulton Market building propped up against the Brooklyn Bridge. Not so awesome. There was some advertising outside for the chess so you knew you were in the right place even if the entrance wasn’t immediately transparent. Finally after lapping the building and being told to get away from the VIP and Media entrances I made my way in and for my $75 received a wrist band.

The organisers had taken over the second floor of the building and partitioned it off using black hoardings with the advertisers logos on them. The floor was divided up as follows:

• There was a canteen with a few tables and some chess sets and a couple of TV screens. This was the liveliest place where kids were playing blitz chess, smashing down pieces and clocks while laughing and screaming at the tops of their voices while others were trying to analyse what was going on in the main game;
• A souvenir shop where you could purchase a hoodie with FIDE World C 2016 etc on it for $40, cups, badges etc;
• A Media room for journalists;
• A commentary area which was surrounded by frosted glass where Judit Polgar was;
• A general auditorium with several TV screens where the paying public were seated, around 200-300 I reckoned and where I spent most of my time;
• Toilets or “Rest Rooms” as the Americans call them; and
• The room where Carlsen and Karjakin were playing. This was an isolated room fronted up with five plate glass windows which I assumed were bullet and sound proof. You could only view this room standing up and it was often 5-6 rows deep so most of the time you couldn’t see anything so I ended up going back to the general auditorium to see the current position.

For $75 I felt I received little value to be honest, it looked like it had been done on the cheap and I had the feeling that whatever money the organisers made from this would not be ploughed back into chess for the likes of the average player. This was no London Classic. The general auditorium only offered low level benches and little wooden chairs, Roger would have hated it!

OK gripe out of the way and on to the chess. Despite what I have said above, if you put 300 chess players together you will get atmosphere and the place certainly was crackling with it. When Carlsen went 3 e3 and into a Colle you would have expected a collective sigh of desperation. However, the Colle is played by millions of club players so the spectators at the venue, most of whom were club players I'm betting, surprisingly got excited as it was an opening they could understand. Suddenly cries of “it’s a Zuke!” went up. Took me a few seconds to realise they were referring to a Colle Zukertort.

Of course, we were helped in our understanding of what was going on by the ever impressive Judit Polgar. Her view was that this has been a different match since Carlsen messed up in game 4. How different it is I wasn’t sure. Since the match started I feel like I’ve been watching an extended Premier League match between West Brom (Carlsen) and Burnley (Karjakin). Carlsen’s strategy seems to be to eliminate the opening so that he doesn’t get hit by any Russian theoretical bombs and slowly press while Karjakin’s strategy seems to be to keep it air tight at the back. Game 8 seemed to be heading that way but it was clear on move 23 that both players were starting to get short of time and the game was opening up. As the players approached move 40 they started moving quickly and the audience started getting on like it was a boxing match. When Karjakin played …Qa3 there were shouts of “get in there!!! Sergey” but Sergey messed up with …Qd3 and we all thought it was going to be a draw and we’d all be heading off to Shake Shak for a well-earned burger. But Carlsen played Qc6, a collective gasp from the audience, whispers of “wtf is he doing?” but Judit calmed everyone down, “Magnus loves to play and this shows just how much” but Carlsen ended up going too far and made a fatal error. 0-1
Unbelievable.

Must say I really enjoyed the game and the experience and looking forward to Game 10 on Thanksgiving Day on Thursday.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Great report, thanks for that. I suspected that the venue wasn't exactly a premier one, from not having really heard of it. Your description of the Fulton Market building "propped up against the Brooklyn Bridge" tallies with that.

Picking up on your final sentence, I noticed that the event reaches a climax over the Thanksgiving Weekend. How do you think that will impact things, if at all, in terms of what else is going on. Hopefully it won't affect things much.

Shake Shak? A reference to Mamedyarov or a typo? Shake Shack.

[JustinHorton]

I'm just jealous. God, imagine being there for that particular game.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Justin,

I know a lad who could only be there for games 2 and 7. The worst two of the match.

I've told him he's a chess Jonah and to stay away.

I was thinking Carlsen played on in Game 8 with Qc6 not wanting to be the one who forced the draw
in a match that already had 7 draws. (actually 5 good games...2 & 7 were non-events.)

Either that or he was trying to toss us a win from a totally drawn game and we all
know what happens next and how much the loss it hurts.

But that is simply uneducated armchair analysis. It was just very puzzling.

In World Championship Match circles that decision must rate alongside Fischer-Spassky Game 1. 29...Bxh2.

[Mick Norris]

For $75 I felt I received little value to be honest, it looked like it had been done on the cheap and I had the feeling that whatever money the organisers made from this would not be ploughed back into chess for the likes of the average player. This was no London Classic. The general auditorium only offered low level benches and little wooden chairs, Roger would have hated it!

Me too

Since the match started I feel like I’ve been watching an extended Premier League match between West Brom (Carlsen) and Burnley (Karjakin)

Burnley are rubbish away from Lancashire though

Great report, Chris, hope you enjoy the next game too

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Interesting article here:

http://mattogpatt.no/2016/11/22/head-first/

[Brian Towers]

For those of you with tin foil hats here's my (crackpot) theory for his poor performance:

Carlsen was born on November 30th 1990. According to my calculations Carlsen's intellectual and physical biorhythms were critical yesterday!

See here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm - for an explanation of biorhythms.

[Nick Grey]

So looks like Carlsen has been hit by Hurricane Angus (a bit early). 30th November is St Andrews day.

Nice to remind me that my eldest son (Andrew) is six months older and both my children think I'm playing grand theft auto because of mentioning Karjakin in our conversations.

Anyway my 6.5-0.5 to Magnus went away some time ago, with the draw being game stopped by Earthquake.

Nice reports & theories & great excuses for why we play so badly. Top players play badly less often, and only the "wtf" moves get into the chess history books/internet.

[NickFaulks]

US Treasury 25.11.2015 press release and designation

Thanks but I would not read that info exactly as "the US Treasury have admitted that they have only some press cuttings as evidence".

It appears that the accused in such cases has the right to see the evidence against him. Kirsan said at the Baku GA that he had requested this, and waved a small envelope which he said was their reply, containing some press cuttings.

You may say that he made this up, but I doubt that he would be foolish enough to compromise his legal position by doing that.

[Paolo Casaschi]

US Treasury 25.11.2015 press release and designation

Thanks but I would not read that info exactly as "the US Treasury have admitted that they have only some press cuttings as evidence".

It appears that the accused in such cases has the right to see the evidence against him. Kirsan said at the Baku GA that he had requested this, and waved a small envelope which he said was their reply, containing some press cuttings.

You may say that he made this up, but I doubt that he would be foolish enough to compromise his legal position by doing that.

I 'm not comfortable to speculate in any way. I have no idea about the US due process for such sanctions: it's a democracy after all, so there must be some logic and some ground for the decision even if they do not necessarily share those with me. I have no idea about Kirsan real intentions, how much he really cares about the sanctions, whether he really intends to fight against them and how.
I can have my own opinion on the subject but I'd rather not represent that as a fact like "the US Treasury have admitted that they have only some press cuttings as evidence". I was just surprised by the wording of that statement, that's all.

[Roger de Coverly]

I can have my own opinion on the subject but I'd rather not represent that as a fact like "the US Treasury have admitted that they have only some press cuttings as evidence". I was just surprised by the wording of that statement, that's all.

It was a claim by Kirsan based on material the US Treasury had supposedly sent him.

If it's all a groundless misunderstanding, it's taking rather a long time to resolve. Presumably Krsan's non-appearance in New York means that he is, in fact, banned from travel to the USA.