The World Chess Championship 2014 will be a match between the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, and challenger Viswanathan Anand, to determine the 2014 World Chess Champion. It will be held from 7 November to 28 November 2014, under the auspices of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in Sochi, Russia.[2]
_________________________________________________


MAGNUS CARLSEN
16TH WORLD CHESS CHAMPION
Nov. 2014 FIDE ELO - 2863.

vs.


VISWANATHAN ANAND
CHALLENGER - FORMERLY 15TH WORLD CHESS CHAMPION
Nov. 2014 FIDE ELO - 2792
_________________________________________________

Venue

The match is being held at the Olympic Media Center located in the Adler City District of Sochi, Imeretinsky Valley, on the Black Sea, next to the Olympic Park houses and the main Olympic Stadium. The Olympic Media Center served as the main media hub during the 2014 Winter Olympics.[12]

Schedule

Match System: The World Chess Championship Match 2014 will consist of 12 games and if necessary, tie-break games. The time control for the "classical" portion of the match will be: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61 has been made.[13]

The opening ceremony will be held on 7 November 2014.[14]

The games will start daily at 3pm Moscow time (UTC+03:00).[15]
_________________________________________________

Chat and machine analysis available on Chessbomb.com.

Live Stream Coverage will also be provided by Youtubers Kingscrusher and ChessNetwork.

Official website

Time to make some predictions and get excited!

isn't he still the 15th world champion?

Yup, but didn't want to create confusion over who is champ and who is challenger. Not that it matters much.

Nice OP!

It seems like there is just absolutely zero "buzz" for this match. Has everyone just completely given up on there being any hope of Anand winning? It seems like we're all (entire chess community, not just this forum) like "we already saw this, and know how it turns out".

Edit: I found one betting site that has Carlsen at 27/100, and Anand at 16/5. Adjusting for the juice, this means Carlsen is about 78% to win the match, and Anand 22%.

I think Vishy might make more of a fight of it this time round (fingers crossed).

Magnus also has not been in the greatest form post his last WC match.

This is all more in hope than that I really believe it though

I blew the dust off the Monte Carlo spreadsheet I made for the 2013 match and made it even better. Here are the simulation results of CHESSTRADAMUS 2014, now with 10x the power*! Here are some EXCITING and UNPUBLISHED BEFORE NOW probabilities with the assumptions: a) expected score is 0,6/0,4** for Magnus according to ELO difference, for each draw rate the remaining score is divided in that ratio b) in case of a tie tiebreak odds are also 0,6/0,4. Betfair also had lines for Vishy +1,5 so I included that as well.


*amount of simulated matches increased to 10k from 1k
** lol euro decimal separator

Does that simulator factor in colors? I.E. does it assume that all 12 games are played with a rating difference of 71 ELO, or does it count half the games at 111 ELO difference and half at 31, since white is generally worth about 40?

Maybe the next version will have this new groundbreaking feature (or I might add it and see how much it changes things)

I just built a quick and dirty Monte Carlo simulator with color adjustments, and got these results:

Of course that naively assumes that the draw rate is the same regardless of who has white. When Carlsen is white, with an effective +111 ELO edge, we're probably more likely to see a decisive game than when Anand has white and Carlsen's effective edge is only about 31 ELO.

Edit: Comparing it to what you had, it looks like this assumption changed almost exactly nothing, lol.

lol (non-added) variance

Here's how it looks assuming white is worth 40, but that the draw rate is 10% higher when Anand is white (and effective ELO is therefore closer, on the premise that draws are most common in the most even matchups, which to my knowledge is generally the case).

Note, since draw rate actually varies, the "45%" column actually means that the draw rate simulated was 40% when Carlsen has white, but 50% when Anand has white. The number in the column is the average draw rate:

Still very little change. The point is that if this match follows ELO perfectly, Carlsen is probably about an 84-88% favorite, depending on what you think of the draw rate. So go bet on him at 27/100 while you still can, if you believe in ELO accurately describing this matchup.

That said, I suspect it's likely that *IF* one player is more "up" for this match, or better prepared, or in better "form", or any of those other sports narratives that may or may not apply, it's likely to be Anand. He looked awfully sharp in the Candidates matches last spring, and has a lot less pressure. Magnus could potentially be overconfident. All of this is probably why the betting lines suggest Carlsen "only" wins 77-78% of the time.

Yeah seems there's some mystical title match fudge factor in the odds. Hard to say if it's real - I guess if you put all the title and candidates' matches together you'd at least have some data but it'd still be a pretty lousy set for modeling.

It won't be that easy for Karlsson as in the previous match. Last year Anand had no confidence because of his poor tournament results prior to the match and his 2 losses in a row to Karlsson. This year he won 2 strong tournaments and he beat Karlsson in the rapid world championship. The Swede is a better player but he's overrated.

Imagine what Karlsson winning the WC match would do for African-American chess players worldwide!

Definitely a lot. That's why I hope Karlsson beats Anand again. Go Sweden

Given the way Anand lost the handful of games that he did last year, I find it hard to imagine him coming back stronger this year. He can't hope to compete with Carlsen's strength in apparently even endgames, he can only try to stop Carlsen from getting to them, presumably through opening preparation. Seems like a tall task.

Yeah my monies are on Magnus and Magnus -1,5

This is going to be so much better next year when it's Magnus v Caruana

Nah, it will be Anand versus Carlsen again next time, just with their roles reversed.

There won't be a "next year" until two years from now; winner of this match defends their title in 2016.

I hope so. I know why everyone is saying it, and they're probably right, but it'd fun to see all the smug "Anand has no shot" people to be wrong.

I actually thought about that when writing and therefore wrote "time" haha Can't catch ME so easily!

By the way, I am completely serious about this. I think that Anand has a very legitimate shot this year, unlike last year. Anything higher than 60% for Carlsen is suicidal in my modest opinion.

I'm going to say Carlsen is 90% to win nonetheless...as long as it's less than 100% I can't be proven wrong anyway

My prediction is that at some point in the second half of the match Carlsen won't have the lead, and the audience will come flocking to see the upset that few people currently seem to think is possible, but Carlsen will pull it out in the end.