WC Match 2016 - New York 10-30 November

[MartinCarpenter]

Well, yes, but if he was really doing that he'd surely be taking the pretty forced draw on offer with white vs the Marshall for instance.

Not that I'd entirely rule out his doing so at some point - maybe if he makes it past say game 8 at 4-4 - but for the moment he's trying, if fairly conservatively, just suffering rather.

[NickFaulks]

I still think Carlsen is favourite but maybe he has gone from 1-4 favourite to 1-2.

That's about what I thought, so I was happy to deal at 1-5 this morning.

[Chris Rice]

Apologies for resorting to the tired old overused clichés, it appears to be a bit of a game of football out there. Karjakin has very early decided to park the bus with 11 men behind the ball and is playing purely for goals through set pieces and possibly goals on the breakaway.

Wasn’t there a team years ago - Steau Bucharest, maybe - that won the European Cup (as was) after playing for penalties from the first minute of the final? Perhaps Karjakin feels that halving out and winning the play off is his best chance of winning the match? It wouldn’t be that unreasonable a strategy if so. It’s not as if Carlsen is a pushover, after all.

I remember that game, it was the 1991 European Cup Final between Red Star Belgrade and Marseilles with Marseilles being the heavy favourites to win, but it was Red Star who won on penalties. I can not put it better than to quote one of the Red Star players,Siniša Mihajlović, who talked to a French magazine about the game twenty years later in 2011:

“That final is still very vivid in my memory. I think it was the most boring final match in European Cup history. A few hours before the match, seven of us were shown tapes with Olympique matches. I remember [manager] Ljupko Petrović telling us: 'If we attack them we'll leave ourselves open for counterattacks', to which I asked 'so, what do we do then'. His answer was: 'When you get the ball, give it back to them'. So we spent 120 minutes on the pitch without practically touching the ball. The match went to penalties, [Marseille player] Manuel Amoros failed to convert his whereas we converted all five. Had we approached the match with an attacking mentality, we probably would've lost, not because Olympique were necessarily better than us, but because their players were used to playing big matches like this one. We had a squad full of 21, 22, and 23-year-old kids"

[LawrenceCooper]

Wasn’t there a team years ago - Steau Bucharest, maybe - that won the European Cup (as was) after playing for penalties from the first minute of the final?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_European_Cup_Final

[Mick Norris]

I remember that game, it was the 1991 European Cup Final between Red Star Belgrade and Marseilles with Marseilles being the heavy favourites to win, but it was Red Star who won on penalties

Yes, remember that well, sat through the 90 minutes, while up in the Lake District; missed extra time and penalties while 3 of us Bury Chess Players tried to catch a Shetland Pony which was wandering up the road and not interested in coming back to his field/stable, with me driving a car with all the doors open to try and block the pony from escaping further; much more interesting than the football

Waddle was playing for Marseilles then I think

Back to the chess

Chess Mind game 4 analysis

[JustinHorton]

Barry Davies' exasperated commentary is what stays with me.

[Jonathan Bryant]

italian game. Magnus doesn't seem to want to play Berlin Ending with either colour.

[Joshua Gibbs]

A couple of Loons posting on chess bomb.... if you see anything else please share it as i find it funny, but please delete names.

http://imgur.com/a/v1uTa

http://imgur.com/a/BTvv6

[MartinCarpenter]

Well, they're having a fun game for the moment at least.

[Joshua Gibbs]

Well, they're having a fun game for the moment at least.

ive enjoyed all five games, but i am odd.

is this the first time the Italian has been played in a World Championships?

[Tim Harding]

is this the first time the Italian has been played in a World Championships?

No. 4th game of Gunsberg-Steinitz match, 15 December 1890. Then the 8th and 10th games.

4th game of the first Lasker-Steinitz match 1894.

[MartinCarpenter]

Well, they're having a fun game for the moment at least.

ive enjoyed all five games, but i am odd.

I've found it slightly hard watching, I think because I'm bit too empathic to enjoy watching Karjakin suffer Which he seems to have found a way to do again today now..... Sigh.

The grinding isn't a problem in and of itself.

[Richard Bates]

is this the first time the Italian has been played in a World Championships?

No. 4th game of Gunsberg-Steinitz match, 15 December 1890. Then the 8th and 10th games.

4th game of the first Lasker-Steinitz match 1894.

Not to mention a number of Karpov-Korchnoi games. Might have been some in Kramnik-Leko as well.

[Tim Harding]

is this the first time the Italian has been played in a World Championships?

No. 4th game of Gunsberg-Steinitz match, 15 December 1890. Then the 8th and 10th games.

4th game of the first Lasker-Steinitz match 1894.

Not to mention a number of Karpov-Korchnoi games. Might have been some in Kramnik-Leko as well.

Yes 8th and 10th games at Merano 1981 and the 5th but not Kramnik-Leko I think, though I have not done an exhaustive search in all world title matches.
If you include the dodgy FIDE knockout world ch tournaments there were presumably other instances.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh dear. It is looking bad for Carlsen in game 5, as Karjakin has found 42...d4.

With two Whites in a row for Karjakin after this, this could be a crucial moment in the match.

EDIT: Complicated lines after 43.Qxd4 - can Karjakin find the right moves. There is one line where a rook is temporarily sacrificed - not easy to find that so many moves away.