[edit] actually it's a facebook post sorry.

Hahaha. Wait, is that real?

Yeah it is, it was posted today. I thought it was quite humble by Kasparov standards.

Haha. Yeah, saw the thread title and figured Kasparov was going to Kasparov, but he almost kept it in check. Would love to see what the first draft was before he edited out everything but the "matched my record" line.

I do hope Carlsen participates in the cycle.

He already confirmed he will I believe?

Oh, nice. I read a more ambiguous reply from him a few months ago and wasn't sure.

Here's more information on the candidates event: http://www.worldchess.com/candidates/london.html

I assume Carlsen agreed to participate since it's a double round robin. As discussed previously knockout events add an enormous amount of variance (and luck in terms of pairings) to the event for no discernible gain. Not to mention many of the mini-matches end up getting decided in rapid or even blitz! Such a terrible format that I hope never rears its ugly head again.

Here are the players:

Levon Aronian (ARM)
Magnus Carlsen (NOR)
Boris Gelfand (ISR)
Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR)
Vladimir Kramnik (RUS)
Teimour Radjabov (AZE)
Peter Svidler (RUS)

Should be an amazing event. It starts 15 March.

Favorite: Carlsen

Most solid: Kramnik

Wild-card who could actually win: Ivanchuk

I can't wait.

Not sure I agree. Not fair to Magnus to have 6 Soviets in an 8 man tournament to determine next challenger for World Title. Candidates matches would be better -- and not rapid game tiebreaks. 10-12 game matches.

The more people in the tournament the better for Carlsen: recent results have shown that he can roll over the bottom half of any 8-player round-robin better than anyone else at the moment.

Candidates matches would actually be less favorable for him, not more.

I imagine at this point the soviets could all openly collude (in terms of pre-arranged strategy) and Magnus would still be a fairly large favorite.

Recent results have shown Magnus can roll over the bottom half of any 8-player round robin, but that he's also the best at rolling over the top half as well! Any format that favors the strongest player without excessive variance is going to see Magnus a huge favorite to end up at the top. I'm sure he would also be a favorite in a FIDE-style knockout event, but that may mean, for instance, a 40% chance of winning whereas I imagine the bookies will have him as at least a 2:1 favorite in this round robin event.

I agree--he's playing the best chess in the world by a margin. More rounds will give him a higher absolute number of expected wins, making it harder for someone else to "get lucky" and win the event.

Tell me you don't seriously believe this.

I looked at the head-to-head records of the eight players (Megabase, real chess only, no rapid/blitz), and there are some interesting results. Carlsen, for example has losing records against Kramnik and Svidler (against whom he's never won a game) and a tied record vs. Aronian (over 41 games!).

Some interesting stats:
The only player with a winning record against the other seven is Kramnik.
Grischuk has never won a game against Carlsen, Kramnik and Ivanchuk.
The most lopsided matchups are Carlsen vs. Radjabov (+6 -1), Carlsen vs. Ivanchuk (+8 -2) and surprisingly Svidler vs. Grischuk (+8 -1!).
Roughly two thirds of the games (68%) ended in draws. Aronian has by far the lowest drawing percentage (60%), Radjabov the highest (74%).
Kramnik loses by far the fewest games, only 9%.
Carlsen has the highest win percentage, 21%.

As for the tournament, Carlsen must be the favourite. Elo expectation suggests he should score +4 (8,9 points), while Kramnik and Aronian are on +1 (7,5 and 7,48 points). I don't think he is that big of a favourite because a lot can happen in such a long tournament. But it is his to lose. In any case, I hope it will be a fascinating event.

Ajezz--check out the numbers posted by Analyst in the Tata thread. I suspect if you restrict to the last couple of years, some of those conclusions might be a little different, especially with regards to Carlsen who has improved a great deal.

Carlsen a 2:1 favorite to win this event? I'm taking the field.

What idiot was talking about 7 Soviets vs. Carlsen? Yeah aronian and radjabov are really going to collude to defend against the chess crown going to a Norwegian. Sure, bud, makes sense to me.

+++

It's kind of insane how rapidly Magnus seems to have gone from world class to Magnus class. I actually didn't believe he was really playing on the level he is for the longest time - hot streaks do happen, but I think he's carried on long enough to show that whatever he's doing it's not just some sort of hot streak.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a lot can happen in such a long tournament. The longer the tournament goes, the better the chances ought be for the strongest player to come out on top. That's the very reason, I assume, Magnus is participating in this event but not in the previous candidates. Just think about the recent Wijk tournament. Anand beat Aronian with 100% home prep. If that was a knockout event, it's extremely likely Aronian would have then been kicked out of the tournament based on what was undeniably just a fluke.

Colluding in chess tournaments is not a new thing for the Soviets.

Seriously, stop calling these Eastern Europe players Soviets. This is worse than calling a Canadian US-American or calling a guy from Mississippi a Yankee.

plus, the soviet union ended like, you know, two decades ago.

I just realized that according to him I am also a Soviet.
Boy, those in my family that were sent to Siberia to die would be mad :O but I ain't mad.. You should just know better

No one in this whole world hates the Soviet empire more than people in the countries that were occupied by it. There is a reason why people shed their lives to gain independence you know? Actually, most of the Russians hate it too. If you called Aronian or Radjabov soviets to their face, they would probably punch you, despite their short stature. It truly is a rather serious insult to people from the ex-soviet countries (at least to those that wanted nothing to do with it)

On topic:

Carlsen is awesome.

I'm from Western Europe, does that make me a semi-Soviet? Sounds like an opening.

Rooting for Carlsen. He's amazing.

Well the Soviets also defeated Hitler and sent the first person into space...

The label Soviet isn't insulting in itself, but it is insulting (and also idiotic) to say that just because these players were born in the Soviet Union that they're more likely to collude with each other.

It's like saying Nakamura is probably going to collude with Wang Hao, because they're both Asian. Or Adams with Nakamura because their countries are both members of NATO.

Awesome. Had no idea this was in London. Need to find a way to go. Don't seem to be tickets up yet.

Also rooting for Carlson. Love watching his games. Loads here - https://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher?feature=watch