Round 4 pairings:
| # | White | Result | Black |
| 1 | Magnus Carlsen | – | Vladimir Kramnik |
| 2 | Viswanathan Anand | – | Alexei Shirov |
What is your prediction? Can Magnus make a second half come back?
http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/2010/en/torneo/fase-final-de-bilbao/resultados/
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Magnus will win his last 3 games.
It’s time for Carlsen to do a ‘Topalov’ – come from behind to win everything in the second half.
I think he cannot, he is out of form and may be too much chess has taken its toll on him. To win 2 wins or for that matter a win against top notch players like vishy, kramnik and shirov is not going to be easy. So, carlsen should go back and analyse his plays.
No, he can not. He will end up second last, as it should be.
He won’t beat Kramnik or Anand.
Despite the 2 losses I don’t think he played all that bad. So he might as well win some games the second half! We’ll see some exciting chess in any case I’m sure.
Magnus is Toast.
He is playing H-Bomb type openings and getting drilled.
Magnus is just a another nice young talent without Gary’s opening book.
If Mag wants to win, he will have to crawl back to Kasparov and ask for more magic elixir.
I guess, Magnus will draw Kramnik. As for the remaining two games I predict 1 or 1.5 points.
Re Anon’s comments:
1) “He is playing H-Bomb type openings and getting drilled.”
Yes, and that may not be his natural style, but an in form Carlsen would be getting fine results from the positions he has achieved from the opening. He is just out of form.
2) “Magnus is just a another nice young talent without Gary’s opening book.” Are you serious? He was showing outstanding results even before he worked with Kasparov and he did that without the Russian schooling in chess – that shows huge natural ability.
3) “If Mag wants to win, he will have to crawl back to Kasparov and ask for more magic elixir.” Nah, it will come with time. It looks like he needs a period of stabilisiation and he may well not perform well in the 2nd half of this tournament. But assuming he can keep his focus on chess, he will be in the top 4 or 5 regardless of whether he is working with Kasparov.
But if he really wants to maximise his chess reuslts he would cut out distractions such as modelling. Of course, it is easy for me to say that, I am not the one being tempted with $$ and glamour.
Top young chess players tend to stick at it or positively choose another career (Kamsky, Nakamura). We have yet to see a spectacular burn out or going off off the tracks like we have seen at tennis, eg Austin or Capriati. Let’s hope Carlsen is not the 1st in chess.
Carlsen should also enjoy his youth and not spend all of his time playing chess. I feel sorry for chess prodigies! They have no life outside of chess! It is one thing for a middle aged man like Kramnik, Shirov, or Anand to play chess seriously, but come on, Carlsen is still very young. He has plenty of time! He should enjoy modeling as well.
Carlsen has a great future in chess but I think both Anand and Kramnik are better chess players right now. I don’t see Carlsen catching up in this event. His next three games should be good though as I’m sure he’ll try his best to rescue a decent result.
Chess is a lot psychological when top players play. When one player is little less confident and the opponent knows it, it is big advantage for the opponent. That is what is happening with Carlsen. He will get back I am sure but not here where everybody seems to be in good form except Carlsen.
“I am sure but not here where everybody seems to be in good form except Carlsen.” – I am 100% agree with this statement.
In case you haven’t noticed, Carlsen has been mathematically eliminated. He can still try not to finish last.