Chess / By Shelby Lyman
on October 11, 2014 – 9:45 AM
The king is dead. A new king is appointed and the struggle for supremacy begins anew.
It is the “eternal return,” or in the illustrious patois of Yogi Berra, “deja vu all over again.”
A year ago, Magnus Carlsen won the coveted world chess championship from Viswanathan Anand. Next month he’ll be defending the title against – you guessed it – the very same Indian grandmaster.
From the perspective of last year – Carlsen clobbered him by a 6ø-3ø score – the defeat seemed the unequivocal end of the 43-year-old grandmaster’s championship aspirations.
But Anand surprised everyone.
He recovered and qualified, a few months later, to play the return match.
Despite the comeback, a reasonable prediction would be a hands-down victory again for Carlsen who is two decades younger. But who can say with assurance given Anand’s talent and fortitude?
The event will be held in Sochi, Russia, Nov. 7 to 28.
The recent last-minute arrangements left the players a couple of months to prepare – a limited time by historical chess standards.
Wary of instability in the region, Carlsen wavered before signing to play. Sochi is a few hundred miles from the recently annexed Crimean peninsula and the unsettled regions of Eastern Ukraine.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com
Anand has no chance unless he asks Nakamura to teach him how to beat Carlsen.