The rare 9... c6 was Naka's move. While not yet a mistake, it has scored poorly in the past according to the database. Polgar (Ne8)and Lagrave (Nd7) wanted to prepare f5 in typical KID spirit.

10...Bg4?! was again Naka's move. Polgar suggested again the logical Ne8, and Lagrave suggested a5, which would have prevented Carlsen's next move and slowed the upcoming queenside attack. The chosen move (Bg4) turned out to be a serious mistake, as the bishop was forced to return later without having any good squares.

11...cxd5?! - now, imagine what were Polgar and Lagrave thinking. They had to cope with a position they did not choose (no GM is used to this situation), and probably assumed that the last two moves are part of a plan to quickly open the c-file for black. When Nakamura, who suggested 11...Qd7, called 11...cxd5 THE main mistake after the game, he was not only uncollegial in his behavior, but also unfair, since black's problems started earlier.

12...Qd7 again looks suspicious, considering that Carlsen played Qa4 two moves later, and no one in the World Team really wanted to exchange queens. Polgar's Ne8 was again rejected.

13...Rfc8 - the last two moves block Bg4's diagonal. The World again rejected Polgar's attempt at kingside initiative with Nh5.

14...Ne8 finally played, but too late, and unrelated to previous moves. If f5 is the goal, then black shouldn't have played c6, Rfc8, etc. If black plays in the queenside, Bg4 is totally misplaced (pawn b7 is weak), a5 should have been played to gain space, etc.

15...Qd8?! at this point the three GMs were clearly upset, as seen in their facial expressions. Now they had to choose between several bad options. An exchange of queens would leave white with a lasting advantage. Avoiding it probably loses a pawn, but at least may enable some complications later on (which is what happened). How to play in a worse position is also a matter of taste. Many players prefer to go for complications that may not be objectively best.

16...Nc7? was chosen by Nakamura and Polgar.

So that's how it happened. For each of the GMs, coping with a position they did not choose was frustrating, and that probably lowered their level of play. It was also confusing for the World while voting, and the lack of any discussion behind the suggested moves made things worse.

http://www.chessbase.com/news/2010/...

I do not, however, get the "Naka was out of book because of e5 and that's why he played c6" apologists. These tend to be the same who state that he's the unequivocal 960 Champ, which pretty much makes book irrelevant, right?

If you took Hideous Blundermura and let him play against a world team that voted on candidate moves made by Carlsen, So, and Wang Hao, "the world" would still lose.

I don't find it at all strange that a top GM can find himself or herself 'out of book' after 7 moves in an opening they use regularly. It can happen all too easily in normal one-to-one OTB games, never mind consultation games.

And this was essentially an old-style consultation game of the type that was popular in the 1920s - the World voting mechanism was a device, borrowed from TV shows, to speed up the decision process. I suspect it simply weakened the World's play -- not because the voters were weak players, though many presumably were, but because it short-circuited the planning process. In the old days, with, say, Capablanca and Reti teamed up together, even Capa would have to argue his side and explain the reasoning behind a suggested move.

There is a famous example of this: in the game Fahndrich / Kaufmann vs Reti / Capablanca, 1914 Capa argued strongly for 14...Bd4 rather than an 'obvious' Rook move - and, when they'd won, Reti saw this as the key move, which would not have occurred to him alone.

Ironically, those pre-computer GMs had superior mechanisms for communication and planning, thus making the team play more like an individual (even if this came down to Capa's superior reputation and power of persuasion).

The current guys just weren't able to work like this: partly because of the speed of play, but also because the World's contribution obviated the need to explain plans.

Which takes us back to the KID. It has many subvariations, and nobody plays them all. Even players who play the same opening all their lives (Gufeld with the KID, Uhlmann with the French) can wander into a line they don't know. Usually, their overall knowledge of the opening's typical themes will compensate -- but as I said before, the Fianchetto Variation is unlike other KID lines and Black can't fall back on a standard kingside attack.

As to clothing: yep, the players *that we could see* favored denim. I shudder to think what other members of the World team might have been wearing. Or not ...

http://www.chessbase.com/news/2010/...

The moves do not make sense played together.

On this occasion Magnus is playing on two boards at once. On one of them Magnus is taking on local chess players, while the other board involves internet users.

Three GMs are suggesting what they consider to be the best move, while the audience is choosing between them in a given time frame.

You can vote here