Final Round 14 (September 29, 2007)
Anand, Viswanathan – Leko, Peter
Kramnik, Vladimir – Aronian, Levon
Morozevich, Alexander – Gelfand, Boris
Svidler, Peter – Grischuk, Alexander
Your prediction?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
The final countdown
0/1
1/0
0/1
1/2
tie break !
Is there a chance for a tie-break?
If both Anand and Gelfand finish with the same number of pts, is there quality of the points a factor, or do they automatically play the tie break?
I think with big money at satke even for the runners up their will be alot of draws, starting with Anands game.
stake*
What ‘quality’ do you mean, egaion?
There are some ways to compare the both player’s results to declare a winner before playing a tiebreak:
* Sonneborn berger – this probably would bring a decision but is seldom fair in tournaments in which everyone plays against everyone.
* Direct comparison: two draws between them! No decision!
* number of wins: would be equal, too (both four win then)! No decision!
What else?
Susan, let’s assume Anand will win the tournament. After several changes, who is going to be the official world champion? Anand or Kramnik (remains until next year when they play against each other)? When this tournament was originally set up, the assumption was still that the winner is the FIDE world champion. Meanwhile we had the Kramnik-Topalov and Kramnik was acknowledged as the unified world champion. Yet, this tournament was not declassified in any clear and understandable way.
It will be interesting to see, whether Kramnik will acknowledge Anand as the current world champion, after years and years of claim that the world champion can lose the title only in a one-on-one match. Which was acknowledged by the chess world, which lead to the unification match between Kramnik and Topalov.
I still can see further complications. Where will the Anand victory leave Topalov? After all he was the official FIDE world champion previously. Neither he could play this time, nor will he get a chance to get a rematch with Kramnik. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those crazy Topalov fans, but I do see a degree of unfairness in all this.
Gabor
Ps:just got back from a 2 weeks Budapest visit. What a political mess…..wow….
ANAND – WORLD CHAMPION
Sadness came to me when reading this from the official website:
“During the press conference we heard Kramnik’s saying: “If I didn’t accept the draw offered by Grischuk [after only 13 moves!], I would have offended him”. That phrase outraged the veteran journalist Arturo Xicoténcatl, who replied to the champion: “Don’t you think that you are the one offending the crowd of fans that follow you on the Internet?” The Russian explained once more the supposed balance of the position, but the truth is that he convinces no one. Only a severe sickness could justify such behaviour, but Kramnik has no signs for it throughout this Championship.”
What would Bobby say?
if i were Vladimir Kramnik i’d have done my very best to finish in second place in mexico … just to teach this Topanailov entity an other hard lesson. of course Anand (or my favourite Boris!) will be the one and only and undisputed WCCh after this tournament – but there will be a match play next year – and it is not Topalov playing the winner of the mexican tournament – it will be Kramnik. unfair, as pointed out by Gabor? No! This Topanailov entity has to be stopped anyway, at least to avoid further damage to chess as an art and as a sport.
just my two pence
greetings
I think Anand will get a better position again Leko and go on to win in style. I hope he uses this opportunity for greatness and surprises Leko with a king’s gambit. Aronian has been a little imprecise thus far, and I believe this will continue, which Kramnik will punish him for will a long Catalan grind-down. Morozevich will yet again bounce back from a loss, he may utilise the Scottish game again. Though it would be nice to see a Vienna game. Finally, I believe Svidler-Grischuk will be a shortish draw, perhaps Grishuk will risk a sicilian of sorts. So
1-0 King’s gambit
1-0 Catalan
1-0 Vienna Game
½-½ Sicilian Scheveningen
The openings are as much wishes as predictions, just in case Morozevich or Anand is reading 🙂
If Anand gets a draw he is world champion.
If Anand looses and Gelfand wins Gelfand is world champion because no matter how the other two games end both will be equal in the first two tie-break criteria and Gelfand will always be better in the third tie-break criterium (Sonneborn-Berger).
Anand plays with white against Leko.
I doubt Leko has big hopes of winning with black against Anand, so there’ll be an early draw making Anand world champion.
I am afraid, most of today’s games will be short draws. Super-GMs, i.e. chess professionals, have figured they should get paid, but have not learned the public expects to enjoy their work and be entertained. The question posed by “veteran journalist Arturo Xicoténcatl” is completely fair. All these explanations about balanced positions, Black equilizing after the opening, etc. just show the difference between the views of GMs and chess fans. According to Svidler or Kramnik, the game becomes meaningless if Black equalized after move 20. Out of curiousity: what is their assessment of the initial position?
Don’t see why Anand will be trying hard today. Anand-Leko will be an ultra-short formality. At least, he has a rare excuse: securing the title.
When games are commented (annonated ?) the information from time clock is no more given, thus one can not recollect under which pressure a particular move had been made.
Why can’t the time information be also recorded and also displayed by on-line repeation.
Well if exciting chess means players playing sub-par by making wild sacrifices in the air without any compensation, then I’m sorry to say most top players don’t follow such a philosophy. They are playing to get the best possible result while avoiding any losses. Even if it means taking a draw.
You seem to be forgetting that in Chess, if both White and Black make the best, perfect moves, then the game will inevitably end in a draw. So each player tries to make the best move he/she can in a given position, given his/her understanding of the risks and compensations thereof. An air of caution is necessary so as to avoid blundering, losing too many games, and losing their elo points.
Whether you like it or not, they don’t enter the playing hall with a view to entertain you. They’ll play according to what is in their best interests.
Chris the redneck from Jena
The GMs go into the game hoping to win – or to not lose.
If they see that the positon is even it’s not in the mindset to go all out to try and entertain Joe Public.
The journalist and fans can say what they like but it’s not rational to think a GM playing for money and a plus score and getting further up the table is going to gamble that in an equal position – which he knows his opponent also knows is an equal position – that he’s going to say “let’s play on, the fans on the internet want to see kamikaze chess”. The US GM that plays Qa5? or so such thing and GM Shabalov and so on seem adept at things like blitz chess but we don’t see them at the top table.
This need for instant gratification is probably a societal/cultural thing…blitz/instant gratification/ etc…
Can’t see how except by this Sofia rule that you can get to a no draw situation…and not sure what quality of chess is expected from that…if the GM presses on and then loses, the journalists and fans commiserate but does that help in terms of prize money?
It’s like one day or 20-20 cricket versus 5 day cricket…
There’s the difference too between tournnament play where it’s beating those struggling at bottom and so on…whereas it seems the player’s destiny is fully in his hands playing in a match…almost analogous to Fischer’s idea re collusion in zonals/interzonals of past…at least in a match, it’s fully in one’s hands beating an opponent and/or stonewalling a la Italian football 🙂
…in tournament, it’s not quite the same…
Dear vohaul,
You wrote:
“if i were Vladimir Kramnik i’d have done my very best to finish in second place in mexico … just to teach this Topanailov entity an other hard lesson. of course Anand (or my favourite Boris!) will be the one and only and undisputed WCCh after this tournament – but there will be a match play next year – and it is not Topalov playing the winner of the mexican tournament – it will be Kramnik. unfair, as pointed out by Gabor? No! This Topanailov entity has to be stopped anyway, at least to avoid further damage to chess as an art and as a sport.”
It fascinates the heck out of me how the chess fans are divided to a pro-Topalov vs anti-Topalov groups. He is just another chess player and what we are talking about is chess, a game or an intellectual activity, pick your choice. Neither which would justify such deep emotions.
What gives (in my humble opinion) a very slight “edge” to Topalov (in this dispute), that growing up in a formerly soviet style socialist country (Hungary), I can imagine at least some of the accusations Topalov presented. Note that I am not saying that they were true, only that I can imagine. Add to this, that I find at least “weird” that Elista became the world’s “chess center”, for no other reason that the political leader of that formerly soviet state just “happens to be” also the president of FIDE. Just think about these.
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Meanwhile Anand drew with Leko, so he is the………what……..the world champion? Because that was my original question. I am really curious how Kramnik will react verbally. Will he congratulate Anand AS the new world champion, or will he state something like “okay, next year we will see/decide who will be the next world champion”.
Gabor
we will see next year who is the boss !!! and kramnik will have it, like anand always wanted to be numero 1 on the elo rank … two different characters … and if topalov wants to be the devil figure, why not after all ? we almost have a theater play …
Gabor,
On Kramnik’s official website, it says:
“Anand is the new world champion”
http://www.kramnik.com/default.aspx
Kramnik accepted to play the title by the established rules and he acknowledges the final result. I think he is showing again good sportsmanship spirits. Kramnik is less fit for tournament than for matches – I think than this is partly due to his conception of chess that white’s objective is to try to push for win and black’s is to equalise. Nevertheless, while he is only a former chess champion for now, he still remains undefeated in a world championship match.
Anand is a remarkable chess player and a remarkable person as well. He played a outstanding tournament and I even have the feeling that he could have pushed for more if he have had to. The fact that he earned the title in a tournament rather than in a match is not his fault – furthermore he will have the opportunity to do so on next year.
Julias
Julias,
On Kramnik’s official website, it says:
“Anand is the new world champion”
http://www.kramnik.com/default.aspx
Indeed, and I am very glad to see that. Finally it seems that a true unification has happened.
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Another potential issue:
I am still slightly bothered by the new system. Unless I am wrong, the future selection to the world championship will be on an invitational basis. That may not reflect a true world championship, compared to other sports. The ELO rating reflects a medium-long time-range average, not a current actual ability. I can’t think of any sport or activity where the world championship would be based on the participants last few years of performance, instead of the current best performance. I still think that the former zonal, inter-zonal system reflected a better chance to find truly the best in the world. But hey, let’s not be greedy and be happy that finally we have a single system. Later it can be still improved.
Gabor