Leonard Barden
Saturday December 15, 2007
The Guardian
The old guys came through at the end. For much of the $2m World Cup in Siberia it seemed that one of the 17-year-olds, Magnus Carlsen (Norway) or Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine), might upset the established order and qualify for the final stages of the world championship.
Their teen revolution was thwarted in the semi-finals by Gata Kamsky and Alexey Shirov. The Tatar-born American and the former Latvian now representing Spain will this morning (10 am start, play live on the internet) lock pawns with Kamsky 1.5-0.5 ahead in a four-game match. The winner will receive $120,000 and the right to meet the former champion Veselin Topalov in a series to decide who challenges Vishy Anand or Vlad Kramnik for the world crown.
Source: Barden on the Guardian
Gata is old? Ewwww! Barden is making it sound like Kamsky and Shirov are over the hill.
Gata hasn’t played chess for 10 years, so he’s actually only 23.
Carlsen is not WCC material yet. Plus, he lost. Plain and simple. He cannot compete with Anand and anyone expect him to win. He might get an occasional draw.
If he is so great a player…then why not play Rybka with no odds…if he wins, then when he hits puberty then he might be WCC material.
He will never be WCC. He is just a child that will begin to lose more and more in the years ahead.
Wait and see….
But, if any GM wants to prove they are really “great,” then let them defeat Rybka with no odds given.
That will prove they are great. Otherwise…they just have two silly letters past their name which mean nothing in the real world.
The above comment was remarkably obtuse.