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Re: Games of the Carlsen-Karjakin W.C.C. Match
Games of the Carlsen-Karjakin W.C.C. Match
December 1, 2016
The Morning After
This morning there was a piece in The Guardian by Stephen Moss on the finish of the Match. Among other things it said:
Just after Magnus Carlsen had defeated Sergey Karjakin to retain his world chess championship, at 1am UK time on Thursday morning, I looked at the Guardian home page and was astonished and delighted to see that the liveblog on the world championship was the third-most read item on its website. For a moment chess – ignored, marginalised, even derided by some – finally had its place in the sun.
The four rapidplay tie-breakers which decided the match, after 12 classical games had finished all-square, were one of those rare moments when all the stars aligned, creating a truly memorable event. It was Carlsen’s 26th birthday; rapidplay – where each player has about half an hour for all his moves – is fast enough to be exciting but provides sufficient time for “proper” chess to be played; Karjakin defended doughtily in a terrible position in game two and the Norwegian missed a win; and then, best of all, Carlsen found the most beautiful checkmate in the final game to secure the title.
That coup de grâce contained something that is akin to the holy grail in chess – a queen sacrifice. Except it wasn’t quite a sacrifice because the Russian, realising the game was up, didn’t take it. He resigned instead, shook Carlsen’s hand, and in the press conference that followed said that at 26, he was far from done in his pursuit of the world title.
I tweeted immediately after the game that Carlsen’s beautiful move would be to chess what Ian Botham’s heroics at Headingley in 1981 were to cricket: an indelible memory, something that makes you continue to believe in the sport even in the bad times. Carlsen was already winning the game and only needed to draw to keep his title, having already won game three of the tie-breakers. He could have played safe and ground out a draw. But he looked deeper and found this lovely move, calculating – despite having just two minutes left on his clock – that mate was inevitable. It was bold, brave, brilliant.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ergey-karjakin
At the press conference after the last game Carlsen said, "I pretty much knew this was going to happen when we made the draw in the 11th game. My strategy was to go for the tiebreak and try my luck there."
"I didn't actually know what my score against him was in rapid," Carlsen replied. "I felt that it was an advantage for me that I didn't have to think as much about game 12 and he did. And I felt my head was working better than it was [before]...Playing four games instead of one seemed like a very good idea. Besides, it was very refreshing to play a bit faster after all these weeks."
Karjakin took the match much longer than GM Viswanathan Anand could. In 2013, Carlsen needed 10 games to wrest the title, then in 2014, he needed 11 games to retain it. Both matches were against the former Indian champion.
Carlsen necessarily called it his toughest world championship test and compared it to the 2013 Candidates' Tournament "where I barely got through."
Yesterday after a mostly equal opener, round two produced a massive opportunity for Carlsen, who could not convert despite several winning moves. Karjakin was universally lauded for defending a worse position for 84 moves, many of them with less than 10 seconds on his clock.
The challenger found a multi-move drawing combination, fantastically sacrificing all three remaining pawns and his rook! Pundits were once again mystified how Carlsen could fail at yet another conversion.
"I would shoot myself in Magnus's place," commentator GM Judit Polgar said.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/carl...mpionship-7236
In Game 3, Karjakin ran his clock below five seconds and then played 38.Rxc7 and resigned.
In Game 4, being behind, Karjakin brought out the Siclian and traded blows with Carlsen but spent precious minutes on his moves and succumbed to the beautiful checkmate mentioned above.
Karjakin said at the press conference that he suffered from the transition to rapid from classical time controls.
Karjakin said he was so immersed in chess that he didn't know many other events from the last three weeks.
"I'm going to ask my wife what actually has happened," he said. Later, he said that fatherly milestones are waiting for him -- his son is currently taking his first steps.
Where do the players go from here? Well, they both plan to play the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Qatar in December. But on a more long-term level, Karjakin said he will fight again for the top honor in chess. Not surprisingly, he plans to accept his invitation to the next Candidates' Tournament.
The tournament structure was also discussed. Agon director Ilya Merenzon shared some impressive statistics: More than 10 million viewers watched the official website (90 percent on smartphones); more than 10,000 watched in person (possibly a record, he's checking on Chennai 2013); and more than 400 accredited media covered the match.
________
Online Comments
- Hats off to Karjakin, he played an amazing match and shows he thoroughly deserved to be the challenger.
- 10 million viewers, is that 1 million viewers and 9 million attempted re connections ?
- It was a great match all in all...very tough for both players and much more tense than the last two WCC matches.
Congrats to Sergey who turned out to be a truly worthy opponent for Magnus in every respect, a very modest and sympathetic person and a graceful loser.
Apparently Agon and Fide with their corrupt club of clowns will run official chess for the coming years, but then again there is no need to support them if you have sites like this one and Jan & Peter commenting on chess24
- Karjakin's impossible defense at Rapid Round #2... Before the world championship, I thought Caruana vs Carlsen would be a better match-up. But after this enormous fight, I KNOW that Karjakin was a very tough candidate, very very tough. He put his all to the fight, and shown one of the best defences I've ever seen. Therefore, I congratulate Sergey for his effort and coming so close to winning the championship
- The best WC ever ending with the best mate ever!
The rapid ending was brilliant and so was Carlsen. Impressive how Karjakin defended against the constantly attacking Carlsen - It looked like a winning strategy for a long time...and in the end the best player won.
- These tiebreaks perfectly showed that this thing shouldn't be allowed in classical chess. One of the players couldn't readjust his way of play and games were very one-sided. And i don't really think that we can blame Karjakin for this too hard - he played 12 classical games on the highest level possible, some of them lasted for many hours. I think that the best format is 16-18 games and the champion holds the title if drawn. If people love rapid/blitz maybe we can see increasing number of blitz/rapid events in the future but where is no necessity in bringing world championship match to it.
- The Classical World Championship match should be 16 games (12 are too short to provide a definitive winner; 24 are too long/expensive for sponsors), with the champion retaining the title in the event of an 8 - 8 result. Rapid and Blitz games (not to mention an Armaggedon game) should have nothing to do with determining the Classical World Champion. Those games belong in tournaments/matches for the World Rapid and World Blitz Championship titles, respectively.
- Sergey will always be remembered. The second game of yesterday will go down in history as THE IMMORTAL DEFENSE.
- "Giving a queen to mate by force is giving mate."
Of course it's a sacrifice, even if it's for mate. You are "giving a queen" is just another way of saying "sacrificing a queen." If Magnus didn't get anything in return, it would be called "blundering the queen."
Anyway, it was a spectacular way to end the match. People will be looking at that move for decades to come. I thought it was a great finale. Kudos to both players for a tense match and an exciting finish.
- In the end the best man won, i was very impressed with both players high class and sportsmanship in the final press conference with Carsen given high praise to Sergey and Karjakin wishing Magnus a happy birthday, it was really so polite and nice, wish it was like this in all sports
Games of the Carlsen-Karjakin W.C.C. Match
December 1, 2016
The Morning After
This morning there was a piece in The Guardian by Stephen Moss on the finish of the Match. Among other things it said:
Just after Magnus Carlsen had defeated Sergey Karjakin to retain his world chess championship, at 1am UK time on Thursday morning, I looked at the Guardian home page and was astonished and delighted to see that the liveblog on the world championship was the third-most read item on its website. For a moment chess – ignored, marginalised, even derided by some – finally had its place in the sun.
The four rapidplay tie-breakers which decided the match, after 12 classical games had finished all-square, were one of those rare moments when all the stars aligned, creating a truly memorable event. It was Carlsen’s 26th birthday; rapidplay – where each player has about half an hour for all his moves – is fast enough to be exciting but provides sufficient time for “proper” chess to be played; Karjakin defended doughtily in a terrible position in game two and the Norwegian missed a win; and then, best of all, Carlsen found the most beautiful checkmate in the final game to secure the title.
That coup de grâce contained something that is akin to the holy grail in chess – a queen sacrifice. Except it wasn’t quite a sacrifice because the Russian, realising the game was up, didn’t take it. He resigned instead, shook Carlsen’s hand, and in the press conference that followed said that at 26, he was far from done in his pursuit of the world title.
I tweeted immediately after the game that Carlsen’s beautiful move would be to chess what Ian Botham’s heroics at Headingley in 1981 were to cricket: an indelible memory, something that makes you continue to believe in the sport even in the bad times. Carlsen was already winning the game and only needed to draw to keep his title, having already won game three of the tie-breakers. He could have played safe and ground out a draw. But he looked deeper and found this lovely move, calculating – despite having just two minutes left on his clock – that mate was inevitable. It was bold, brave, brilliant.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ergey-karjakin
At the press conference after the last game Carlsen said, "I pretty much knew this was going to happen when we made the draw in the 11th game. My strategy was to go for the tiebreak and try my luck there."
"I didn't actually know what my score against him was in rapid," Carlsen replied. "I felt that it was an advantage for me that I didn't have to think as much about game 12 and he did. And I felt my head was working better than it was [before]...Playing four games instead of one seemed like a very good idea. Besides, it was very refreshing to play a bit faster after all these weeks."
Karjakin took the match much longer than GM Viswanathan Anand could. In 2013, Carlsen needed 10 games to wrest the title, then in 2014, he needed 11 games to retain it. Both matches were against the former Indian champion.
Carlsen necessarily called it his toughest world championship test and compared it to the 2013 Candidates' Tournament "where I barely got through."
Yesterday after a mostly equal opener, round two produced a massive opportunity for Carlsen, who could not convert despite several winning moves. Karjakin was universally lauded for defending a worse position for 84 moves, many of them with less than 10 seconds on his clock.
The challenger found a multi-move drawing combination, fantastically sacrificing all three remaining pawns and his rook! Pundits were once again mystified how Carlsen could fail at yet another conversion.
"I would shoot myself in Magnus's place," commentator GM Judit Polgar said.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/carl...mpionship-7236
In Game 3, Karjakin ran his clock below five seconds and then played 38.Rxc7 and resigned.
In Game 4, being behind, Karjakin brought out the Siclian and traded blows with Carlsen but spent precious minutes on his moves and succumbed to the beautiful checkmate mentioned above.
Karjakin said at the press conference that he suffered from the transition to rapid from classical time controls.
Karjakin said he was so immersed in chess that he didn't know many other events from the last three weeks.
"I'm going to ask my wife what actually has happened," he said. Later, he said that fatherly milestones are waiting for him -- his son is currently taking his first steps.
Where do the players go from here? Well, they both plan to play the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Qatar in December. But on a more long-term level, Karjakin said he will fight again for the top honor in chess. Not surprisingly, he plans to accept his invitation to the next Candidates' Tournament.
The tournament structure was also discussed. Agon director Ilya Merenzon shared some impressive statistics: More than 10 million viewers watched the official website (90 percent on smartphones); more than 10,000 watched in person (possibly a record, he's checking on Chennai 2013); and more than 400 accredited media covered the match.
________
Online Comments
- Hats off to Karjakin, he played an amazing match and shows he thoroughly deserved to be the challenger.
- 10 million viewers, is that 1 million viewers and 9 million attempted re connections ?
- It was a great match all in all...very tough for both players and much more tense than the last two WCC matches.
Congrats to Sergey who turned out to be a truly worthy opponent for Magnus in every respect, a very modest and sympathetic person and a graceful loser.
Apparently Agon and Fide with their corrupt club of clowns will run official chess for the coming years, but then again there is no need to support them if you have sites like this one and Jan & Peter commenting on chess24
- Karjakin's impossible defense at Rapid Round #2... Before the world championship, I thought Caruana vs Carlsen would be a better match-up. But after this enormous fight, I KNOW that Karjakin was a very tough candidate, very very tough. He put his all to the fight, and shown one of the best defences I've ever seen. Therefore, I congratulate Sergey for his effort and coming so close to winning the championship
- The best WC ever ending with the best mate ever!
The rapid ending was brilliant and so was Carlsen. Impressive how Karjakin defended against the constantly attacking Carlsen - It looked like a winning strategy for a long time...and in the end the best player won.
- These tiebreaks perfectly showed that this thing shouldn't be allowed in classical chess. One of the players couldn't readjust his way of play and games were very one-sided. And i don't really think that we can blame Karjakin for this too hard - he played 12 classical games on the highest level possible, some of them lasted for many hours. I think that the best format is 16-18 games and the champion holds the title if drawn. If people love rapid/blitz maybe we can see increasing number of blitz/rapid events in the future but where is no necessity in bringing world championship match to it.
- The Classical World Championship match should be 16 games (12 are too short to provide a definitive winner; 24 are too long/expensive for sponsors), with the champion retaining the title in the event of an 8 - 8 result. Rapid and Blitz games (not to mention an Armaggedon game) should have nothing to do with determining the Classical World Champion. Those games belong in tournaments/matches for the World Rapid and World Blitz Championship titles, respectively.
- Sergey will always be remembered. The second game of yesterday will go down in history as THE IMMORTAL DEFENSE.
- "Giving a queen to mate by force is giving mate."
Of course it's a sacrifice, even if it's for mate. You are "giving a queen" is just another way of saying "sacrificing a queen." If Magnus didn't get anything in return, it would be called "blundering the queen."
Anyway, it was a spectacular way to end the match. People will be looking at that move for decades to come. I thought it was a great finale. Kudos to both players for a tense match and an exciting finish.
- In the end the best man won, i was very impressed with both players high class and sportsmanship in the final press conference with Carsen given high praise to Sergey and Karjakin wishing Magnus a happy birthday, it was really so polite and nice, wish it was like this in all sports
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