Gelfand lost game 7 with white but won game 8 with black to take the match to the blitz stage. He won both games to earn a berth in the final. Grischuk won game 7 with black and held on with white in game 8 against Kramnik.
Gelfand will now face Grischuk. The winner will earn the right to challenge Anand for the World Championship title.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I think the problems with the format of the candidates matches are becoming clear. Judging by the candidates’ “normal” games, there is no clear favorite and it appears as though this entire cycle will be determined on tiebreaks. The winner need not necessarily be a really strong match player. So I wonder about the quality of the world championship match chess, where there will be many more long games. In other words, will winning in the tiebreaks work against Anand for the world championship? I don’t think so.
Glad for Gelfand. He is a fine old warrior and I hope he gets the better of Grischuk. That said,gritty showing by Grischuk,stopping the ‘great wall’ Kramnik. However,deciding classical games with Rapid or Blitz just does not seem right. This event showed that there is very little separating the top players.
this 4 game classic then 4 game blitz is for the birds. there has to be a better way to do this. top is out and kramnik is out and magnus refused to play. this is so disappointing to me. I do hope boris pulls it off he deserves a crack at the world champianship.
Grischuk and Gelfand took their chances and did very well. Kamsky gave it a really good shot and Kramnik, well, drawing after like 8 moves in one game, a real let down. He didn’t deserve to go any further. I’m a Kramnik fan, but he never really gave this tournament a good go. Anand must be so happy right now with all the top players out. I favour Grischuk to win this now.
Two K’s lost out to two G’s
With due respect to Gelfand and Grischuk, superstrong players that they are, i think it could be very difficult to get funding for the World Championship final as they are not particularly big names and Anand will start strong favourite,
A note from a Kronikally Krabbe, Krafty Kritik:
Are you tired of boring Kramnik games? Well, today’s a day to celebrate!
Tired of chess players,in general, with names beginning with KR? (Too many K’s to Kount.)
Krasenkov and Krogius and Kropotkin?
(Oops, slipped a blue-blood anarchist into the list)
(But we will never tire of Irina Krush. Long live the Krusher.)
Huzzah for Alexander Grischuk. Love live the GR’s. They’re GReat.
Bye for now,
Lenya Gristmilli
I think this clearly illustrates why Carlsen didn’t play this tourney. While both Grischuk and Gelfand are exceptional players..haha..Neither of them are even in the top 10! It was easy to foresee that this was a crapshoot.
Good luck to both…though I seriously think it tarnishes the WCC. I mean..seriously, does anyoone really think either of these fellows can take out Anand? …
Stoopid Fide.
I guess Anand will enter the history book as the first player to defend his title against three different opponents.
Seriously, as good as Gelfand and Grischuk are, holding it against Anand in a match will be very very difficult for them.
For eg, Gelfand had pretty good success with Sicillian in this tourney and deservedly so. But Anand handles Sicillian better than anybody: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1387996
On the other hand, Grischuk, will have nightmares just thinking about how on earth could Vishy pull off victories like this: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1473020
Will the match against Anand also end with blitz games? :/
Grischuk and Gelfand are top 10 material; I hope the winner will surprise in strength in an Anand long match (until that too also reaches the crazy blitz phase).
Please use another format next candidates, FIDE! Blitz games are fun, but containes too much randomness to choose the best long chess candidate.
And if blitz chess is used, why not a mini match with more games, at least 20, to compensate for the higher randomness level? That is if we want the best player to go through, not the most lucky..
The number of regular time controlled games should have been at least 10(if not 12) in every match. And there could have been one month rest between the stages and conducted at different venues
My idol Kramnik didn’t show his superior talent in this tournament as evidenced by very short draws. It seems to me that he went gay against Gm Grischuk and wanted to get the better of him in blitz but he forgot that Sasha Grischuk was once a world blitz champion in that was held in Israel way back 2006 or 2007 if my memory serves me right!!! I favor Gelfand’s chances in the Candidate’s Final Matches because of his vast experiences in match play and he’s very consistent player since in the 1990’s!!!!
I thought Kamsky was winning over Gelfand and has a chance over the World title? Did he lose?