I think the whole match probably mind-****ed Anand to put it one way. He knows he only managed to grab the world championship once Kasparov was out of the picture. He spent his chess life in Kasparov's shadow and now it looks like he'll spend the rest of it in Carlsen's and perhaps even Aronian's. But instead of getting a real challenger - due to a series of fortunate (perhaps unfortunate?) events he ends up with Gelfand. As Kasparov said of the match: "...It is the first time in history that an official world championship match has nothing to do with the title of the world’s best player .... content-wise, the match is inferior to all those played since I left professional chess."

Him losing to Gelfand would just cement his place in history as a perpetual side kick to the world class. Whereas him winning really would do absolutely nothing - everybody expected him to win without any real problems. That's a nasty situation to be in mentally - much to lose and nothing to gain.

He also proposed to wait with Rb3??, overlooking a little surprise after c7 Kd7 Rb8!+-, which he caught a few minutes later.

Rh7 only comes short by a single tempo, not easy to calculate this (or see that the better Kg3 wins) under pressure with less than 10 seconds on the clock.

Both players showed great resourcefulness in the rapids. Gelfand was unable to match Anand fluency and that seems to be the difference, as both players had plenty of winning chances in the rapid games.

What's the argument against the "first to win x number of games wins" format? Still aftershocks of the first KK match or what? Possibility of 20 draws between wins?

Firstly, what you said.

Secondly, it's difficult from an organizational standpoint. It's hard to book a venue if you don't know for how long you'll need it. Also, most top players have contractual obligations with tournament organizers. They need to be able to plan reliably which they aren't if the championship match has an open end.

For example, the Capablanca-Alekhine match took two and a half months and 34 games. The first Karpov-Kasparov match took five months and 48 games and wasn't even finished then. Both matches went for 6 wins, draws not counting.

It's a bit like Alekhine said: "I don't see how I can win 6 games against Capablanca. But I also do not see how he can win 6 games against me." It's 85 years later and with today's best players it would be the same.

The tension between chess truth and competition might be a factor with upcoming tournaments. IMO I would rather have the Aronian-Kramnik game where Aronian sacs a queen for a slew of minor pieces. It may not have the "truth" behind the soundness but from a competition viewpoint, I loved following the game.

The rapid games of Anand-Gelfand had competition. Both sides dropped material early...it was competition and drive that decided the match. The public wants this...the chess purists were cringing.

The sponsorship dollars come from the public point of view...give them what they want

Much longer match with much shorter games...game in 30....two games a day....

For that to be viable the quality of the coverage needs to increase tenfold (at least). I am a member of what you call "the public".

I honestly and genuinely suck at chess (hard).

I need a GM (or at least someone like KingsCrusher) to explain to me what's going on. In fact I prefer Kingscrusher over Short for example. Short is the way superior player, but listening to him for more than 30 seconds without feeling the urge to strangle little kittens is difficult.

I need to be able to follow the moves one by one.

We are living in the third millenium. It shouldn't be that hard to accurately relay the moves from an electroninc board to a digital one and have it display on the stream AND site instantly. During the blitzing out of the openings and during Gelfand's time troubles I was often times pretty lost yesterday. When during game 3 the relaying of the moves on the site had stopped entirely, one couldn't even follow the actual physical board because half of it was covered by the Chessbase board displaying a different position altogether.

I agree they need more professional internet connectivity between the venue and the audience.
One of the few redeeming features of the new format - is the tension of the rapid format.
If you cannot display that tension - then you may as well get rid of the rapids and just say if the challenger cannot get a clear win against the champ the champ retains the title.

Oh and I forgot to mention that even finding the official stream was a major PITA.

Maybe they knew right from the start how much it would suck and how art lecture ridden it would be, so they hid it in a remote corner of the internet. On the first day of the match I went to FIDE.com, to see if there was coverage. *IF* there was live coverage of the event, you would expect them to have *LIVE COVERAGE HERE!!!11!!1!* plastered all over the homepage of their homepage, no? I mean it's FIDE, the world chess federation (you know, the body that organizes the event called World Chess Championship). Butnaaaah... on FIDE.com there was NOTHING about the match at all.

Can you guys imagine UEFA.com a week from now not mentioning a single word about the EURO?

I didn't give up and googled a bit, until I had found chessbomb, and only there it was that someone in the chat posted this cryptic moscow.fide.live.whatever.the.****.230948230984324 0598 link to the official FIDE coverage of the WC.

LOL

I preferred the coverage of the US Open with Jennifer and GM finegold over the who knows what you got at the Moscow site. Too many times their were art lectures and who knows what else.

Even a quality audio feed with cordinated video boards like in the Kramnik-Aronian match that the ICC did was better than Moscow IMO.

makes fifa look efficient.

Which is a pretty LOL statement by itself, but unfortunately applicable here.

Give me curtains commenting on a livestream of a WC match between Carlsen and Aronian first to 6 wins and my chess life will be complete imo.

Because I never miss a chance to make fun of LSU:

12 standard games were some of the most boring chess i've ever seen in my life.

wp mayo

Hilarious mayo. Love it. Very nice.

Everyone seems to take this position that boring games come from players who are playing closer to optimally in the new age...however, Houdini and Rybka, who obviously are far stronger than any human player has ever been...have had some SICK wide-open, razor-sharp gambit games. Check this one out for one example...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWdMqvGMxF4

So I don't think that uninteresting, draw-happy can necessarily be excused by saying it's closer to optimal chess, or at a higher-level.

It's also worth mentioning that high level computer chess has very few draws in general. The drawing phenomenon seems to be largely a human one and not a direct consequence of the game. This match could have really benefited from the Sofia rules. Actually player agreed draws should probably just be removed from the game period. It really doesn't fit the must-play rules of chess in general. There's no "pass" but you can both agree to draw at any time? Kind of strange.

What do you guys think the average match length would be if it was 'first to 4 wins' or 'first to 3 wins', etc?

I think you could sell first to 3 or 4 wins to chess fans, don't have any clue about how the sponsors or players would feel.

Let's say it's as few as first to 3; If white wins the first 3 games, game 4 is an elimination game. That would be a perfectly fine WC match to me where one player was overwhelmingly almost impossibly dominant, but I'm guessing that most recent WC matches have taken longer than 12 games to get to 3 wins if they ever got to 3 wins in classical.

Exactly. What we know from tablebases suggests that even computers are still a long way from perfect play (Chessbase April Fools' jokes notwithstanding), so humans are not anywhere close. Chess is not being "played out" to a draw death by humans and never was, except by their own unwillingness to play for wins.

Listening to that video, the narrator talks about "controlled recklessness" (sounds like "tight-aggressive" to me) and a new Romantic era...everything old is new again, perhaps. Not that humans could stand up to the accuracy of engines here, now or, maybe, ever, but they should be able to take shots at each other -- if they're willing to risk losing. But if they know what is possible, why won't someone try it?

They already have. The real champions of this game have always been very aggressive players - Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov in his prime. Aggressive not necessarily meaning tactical explosions but just their general play. It's looking to be the same now with Carlsen who seems to be willing to push the smallest possible edge.

I wouldn't quite call this match the decline of humanity's play, but the decline of Anand and Gelfand's play. This had some of the lowest quality chess played in a world championship match in many years paired with a complete lack of fighting spirit from either player. It was just bad event - but not necessarily indicative of chess as a whole.

I think Kasparov's departure was the ringing of the gong - the changing of the guard is coming. This match is just a reminder of what we're leaving behind with the Aronian-Kramnik match a glimpse into what we have yet to come!

in defense for Anand, we must realise is been near the top for the last 23 years....
maybe some motivation issue are appearing.
while the yougnster are full of it

we really need morozevich to do well in the next cycle. he'd put a lot of vigor and imagination back into top level chess if he every gets the publicity he deserves.

Speaking of Morozevich vs Anand, there's this incredible rapid game between the two on Youtube.

Part 1
Part 2

Bump. This finally arrived. It's a poster in Russian, signed by Anand and (presumably) Gelfand:



I've hung it on the wall at work, because why not? I work for the U.S. military in the middle east, so I've already gotten some weird looks for having a Russian poster at my desk.

Also, I got a Russian book, which is pictures of people playing chess.