| Aug-25-04 | | Knezh: Poor showing from ex-world champion - he did not win a single game! |
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| Aug-25-04 | | Knezh: I was wrong - he won one game - against Milos. |
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Aug-25-04
 | | Bobsterman3000: <Knezh> In all fairness, Karpov is clearly out of form at this time. He has been doing alot of public appearances and not playing much at the Super-GM level. |
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| Aug-25-04 | | Knezh: Yes, and adding to that, he is also getting old. Not that old folks can't play good chess, take Korchnoi for instance ;) |
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| Aug-26-04 | | iron maiden: I think it would be safe to say that Karpov's time as a super-GM is basically over. Any guesses on how well Kasparov will be playing in ten years? |
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Aug-26-04
| | Bobsterman3000: <iron maiden> and <Knezh> Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Karpov doesn't have as much passion to win as he had even 18 months ago, when he beat Kasparov in that 25/10 rapid exhibition match. Considering that his skills were already declining at that time, I don't think he'll be able to play at a 2600+ level anywhere near as long as Korchnoi, and I don't think that he'll ever climb above 2700+ again, barring a total rededication to chess on his part... |
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| Aug-26-04 | | isolatedpawn: This tournament did not field many Super-GM's. But still Anand has clearly demonstarted that he is the king in Rapid Chess. This year he has won in almost all tournaments that he has participated in!!! I am starting to have a feeling that he is now becoming better than Kasparov. At least playing against humans in tournaments rather than having jazzy matches with Computers!!! |
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| Aug-26-04 | | acirce: <This year he has won in almost all tournaments that he has participated in!!!> Most of these have been rapid. (Sao Paulo, Mainz..) or thanks to rapid (Dortmund, since that is how he won both the semi against Leko and the final against Kramnik). What else has he won other than Corus? |
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Aug-26-04
 | | offramp: I am a big big Karpov fan but I must say that I am surprised his rating is 2780 - just 17 tiny points behind Anand. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | acirce: 2780 is not Karpov's rating of course, but it is his highest rating ever (10 years ago I think) while Anand's all time high is 2797. Current rating for Karpov is 2682, Anand's is 2782.
IMO 2682 is too high for him and he would drop faster if he played more. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | ajit: <Acirce>Then why not sponsor some super GM tournaments, invite top GMs and Anand, with classical time control games. I am sure he would love to play.
Point is, there aren't many category -18,19 tournaments with classical time controls.
Thanks to 'RAPIDS',atleast we get to see them play some chess! |
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| Aug-26-04 | | ajit: <Acirce>Then again, you completely missed <isolatedpawn>'s post.
His point is Anand has won all the tournaments he played in, rapids or not.
Except for melody amber where he only managed to win the rapid section, the above fact is true.
For that matter, barring Linares, Anand has played in all classical time control games that Leko and Kramnik have participated in.
Infat, Anand has played more classical games than both Leko and Kramnik, as he played in the European League and French League. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | acirce: <ajit> What are you talking about? How could I miss his post as I replied to it? I was just pointing out that they were rapid tournaments, would you mind telling me what's wrong with that? |
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| Aug-26-04 | | clocked: <acirce> what is "wrong" (I wouldn't go that far!) is that you responded to a quote out of context...
he JUST said "he is the king in Rapid Chess" right before the quote. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | acirce: Yep, but I still provided information left out in his post. Also the comparison to Kasparov that followed made me feel that it was relevant to point it out. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | isolatedpawn: <acirce> Yes you are right. Most of the tournaments were Rapid and I was referring to Anand's exceptional ability at winning the Rapid tournaments. Anand has not lost a single game in this tournament. There are not much regular classical time control tournaments barring Linares and Corus. And Anand won the Corus and was not participating in the Linares this year. The comparison with Kasparov is tempting :-) as Kasparov hardly participates. He played in Linares last year and had a dismal performance. I remember Radjabov beating Kasparov in a French Defense in that and the game being dubbed as the Best game of the tournament!!! He just played the Linares and the Reykjavik Rapid this year!!! |
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| Aug-26-04 | | acirce: Kasparov's result in Linares was +1, both this year and 2003, far from his old self but not really "dismal". He also played in Petrosian Memorial and scored +1 there too - the same as Anand. Don't get me wrong, Anand is a great player and probably the very best in the world right now. But I'm not sure I would use his results in rapid as an indicator of that since it's a different type of game. His classical results are great enough, overall. He's even better than that in rapid. On Dortmund, what's most impressive there was in my opinion not that he won the tournament after tiebreaks, but that he scored +2 in the group play which nobody else did. A little paradoxical, but I just don't find rapid results that valuable. |
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| Aug-26-04 | | Hidden Skillz: i agree..age plays a certain role but everybody is different..for example look at keres he played great at the end of his life.. |
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| Aug-27-04 | | isolatedpawn: <acirce> You are right again! But I mentioned "dismal" performance for Kasparov because knowing his Chess abilities, he was doing much better and can still do better. I am a fan of Kasparov and would always want to see him playing more tournaments and winning them!!! Kasparov has set a benchmark for himself and if he falls short of that, I feel its "dismal". It would be my dream to see the best 3, Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik, play in a round-robin on classical time control against each other!!! Wow it would be like the candidates matches in 1970-1971 when the best were battling with each other to play against Spassky!!!
<Hidden Skillz> Yes I think age certainly matters. Nigel Short in his report on "I played Bobby Fischer on Internet" has mentioned that at the age of 58, Fischer is virtually a geriatric in the Chess world. I think age blunts your brain's agility and razor sharp edge... Look at Magnus Carlsen. He is exceptional and he is been doing hard work from a young age. Hope he proves us wrong, that age matters, and continue his brillinat play for years to come!!!
Again in Anand's favour, he is being brilliant right from a very young age till today even when he is in his middle / late 30's, playing against younger opponents and winning... |
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| Aug-27-04 | | acirce: < It would be my dream to see the best 3, Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik, play in a round-robin on classical time control against each other!!!> Absolutely. I feel that Leko is up there too these days. Oh well - first we have the Leko-Kramnik match and then probably Kasparov is up against the winner of those two in 2005. I'm so excited. |
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| Aug-27-04 | | Rajkumarp: No doubt Kasparov win the round robin. But who occupies the sencond place is a billian dollor question? Anand and Kramnik in all grounds equal opponents and equal capabilities. Of course, Anand won the Dortmound and performing well these days. But these are not the correct and tough ones to him. So the question is not first, Who is the second player ? |
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| Aug-27-04 | | acirce: Why is it "no doubt" Kasparov would win? It would be extremely open and very close, I would consider Anand favourite but only by a tiny margin. Probably coincidences would decide. It would be a great event, anyway... |
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| Aug-27-04 | | iron maiden: The suggested four-player round robin sounds interesting until you consider that it would probably have a lower decisive-game percentage than Linares 2004. I agree acirce, there's no way that Kasparov or any of the other three, for that matter, could dominate a tournament like that. I would consider Leko the favorite, but even to him I'd only give about a thirty percent chance of winning, and the others would all be in the twenties. The winner(s) could very likely only score +1, depending on the length of the tournament. |
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| Aug-27-04 | | latvija: So, Karpov didn't play that well. It was a Rapid tournament. I don't consider that to be "serious" chess playing. Sure, these guys can beat the pants off 99% of current chess players. But, I do not consider it to be "good" chess. I do not expect for any Rapid game to be part of a "Best Games of the 21st Century" and like. Give me the days of 40 years ago. Those were real tournaments with real time controls. I don't see playing Rapid or Blitz chess bringing out the "warrior" in a player. Sure, Karpov didn't play his best. But give me a break, at least he's playing. He didn't wimp out like some players--Elmars Zemgalis, Bobby Fisher, Charles Kalme, Rueben Fine, to name some--and not play; as he is getting older or "my career" is more important. I have noticed that Karpov has put on weight in middle age. I don't know how accurate are the statistics at ChessMetrics, but you can see who were the dominant players in their 60's, 70's, etc. I'll look at Rapid games. But, I do not consider that Rapid games are good enough for theoretical novelties. |
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| May-31-09 | | Udit Narayan: WOW, Anand won this rapid tournament by a 3 (!!) points margin. The rest of the field was clearly not even in the same league as him. |
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Kibitzing
