Candidates Tournament 2013

[David Blower]

I'm there for Round 1.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I see Chessbase are doing a series of articles on each candidate leading up to the tournament, starting with Peter Svidler:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8887

Presumably going in reverse order by rating, finishing with Carlsen.

This neatly avoids me having to look up their recent results! (or rather, their head-to-head records, which is what I guess I really wanted).

Looking over the article on Svidler, I'm impressed by his record against the others, but this did make me smile:

"[Svidler] has a lifetime +2 against Carlsen and it is an undefeated record at that. On the other hand, he was facing mini-Carlsen at the time and not the beast ascendant we now have before us." (the wins were in 2006 and 2007).

[Tristan Clayton]

I've been keeping an eye on http://www.locatetv.com/uk/listings and so far no sign of any Candidates coverage on either of the Sky Arts channels. Nothing chess-related on the Sky Arts website, either.

Current listings only go up to March 18, and these may of course not be set in stone.

But I remain curious as to what (if anything) to expect, especially after such a long time with no chess TV programming!

[Colin S Crouch]

Personally, I am happy enough just to watch things on the computer, follow the games, and keep a note of what Houdini, or others suggest. If there are live pictures, watching to see whether players are happy ore are squirming, then there is little need to be there.

As for the games themselves, who is the most likely to win? The obvious answer in Carlsen, with massive results at London (Classic) or Wijk aan Zee, and his world record ratings. However, Carlsen's play is not infallible, and under close scrutiny, and with the help of the computer, there are various glitches in his play. If I have noticed this, then you can be sure that others will also have noticed it, and that they will work hard, either to find a way to play for a win, or at least to have two draws against him.

If Carlsen has been cut back to, say, +2 in the 14 games, who would be most likely to overtake him?

Kramnik is a superb player, but recently he makes teh occasional big errors, not the sort of thing he would have done in his twenties.

Aronian is also superb, but occasionally he is over-enthusiastic in his play, and as a result plays the occasional really bad game.

Radjabov looks to be the most interesting relative outsider. He is not over 2800, but he is not far off it. He has had a low profile over the last few months, but presumably he has been working very hard on his game. He is young, which means he has stamina, and is capable of being able to improve his play. He must have been furious in his long endgame loss against Carlsen at the Tal Memorial, and will be determined not tolose against him again.

Of course, predictions can go vastly wrong, a time-trouble blunder often changing the whole course of the game. I would suspect the most likely to be Carlsen winning, Radjabov pressing hard, and Aronian with a plus score. If I am badly wrong with my assessment, then I will have learnt something!

Yes, I am working on a book at the moment, on Carlsen's most recent games, and probably games from the Candidates', so definitely I will be watching the games, and not just Carlsen's games.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I agree with a lot of this. It should certainly be noted that most of Carlsen's tournament wins come from being completely ruthless against the sub 2750 - Luke McShane type of players. When you look for wins against players of the calibre in this tournament, then you just find a win v Radjabov at Tal memorial, and the win v Aronian in London which was as much about Aronian overestimating his chances, which as Colin says, he is wont to do.

Thus I understand Colin's warning that if other players are careful then Carlsen might just go +2. However he has recruited Nielsen to help with openings, and as well as at least +1 v each of Grischuk, Svidler and Ivanchuk - the latter of whom he seems to beat all the time - I think he would beat Aronian again if they play a crucial game, and I don't see him losing. I believe that +4 would suffice for victory.

I don't see Aronian being in the contest at all. I have yet to see him really raise his game to an occasion, and his comparable flop in Mexico 2007 was predicted at the time.

Kramnik will perhaps be the nearest challenger to Carlsen but Colin is right to alert us to Radjabov who is a dark horse and could also take full points from the Svidler-Grischuk-Gelfand category of players. But I don't think he will go undefeated and could imagine him having an "accident" against Ivanchuk.

[John McKenna]

Ivanchuk is the one more likey to have an accident and once he does he may not recover. Hope he hits winning streak though as this may be his last chance to play a WC match. Svidler and Gelfand are not so volatile but lack real drive these days. It would be much more competitive and representative if Karyakin (BCM spelling) and Caruana were coming. My dark horse is Grischuk - neither old nor young he is a good all-rounder.The Chessbase stats for Svidler show he has +7,-1,=16 against Grischuk but I think the latter will not lose to him in London and may even get one back.

[Roger de Coverly]

The pairings have now been published

http://www.worldchess.com/candidates/pr ... irings.pdf

Aronian white against Carlsen in round one.

[Mick Norris]

Carlsen often starts poorly and I expect he will be nervous, so maybe by the first rest day we will have a good idea about both him and Ivanchuk

Kramnik has 3 blacks in the first 4 rounds, so we will see if he is playing to draw those and win with white

If Radjabov plays better with white, and continues to play well with black, he might win it

Carlsen should win, any of them could win, but I hope that Kramnik does win

[Colin S Crouch]

Interesting to see that Aronian - Carlsen could happen as early as round 1. This could easily set the whole tournament alive - or maybe not. Aronian unexpectedly missed a four move checkmate against Carlsen, at the Spanish-Brazilian event last year, and he put pressure on Carlsen at Wijk aan Zee. Yet he also played very badly against him in the London Classic ...

If, as Mick suggests, Carlsen does start badly, all of us will no doubt be quickly reassessing what is likely to be going on in the rest of the tournament.

I am not so sure that Carlsen is "completely ruthless" against slightly lower rated opponents. Jonathan cites his game against McShane, but wasn't McShane much better in the earlier part of the game? It seems more the case, as Mick mentioned, of first match nerves. Also, closely examining the Carlsen - Jones match in December, Carlsen's win was not nearly as convincing as it looked, and both players made various slight errors, in an admittedly tense opening, until Jones unexpectedly sacrificed his queen. Carlsen also looked uncertain in the two draws at the end of Wijk aan Zee, when he was aiming for a record winning score, ahead of, rather than equal to, Kasparov.

John, yes, perhaps it is disappointing that Karjakin and Caruana are not playing in this, but of course they did not qualify. Next time around though, they will have accumulated much extra experience, and by then, who knows, one of them will be in a world championship match.

Anyway, back to writing up Carlsen - Jones.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Hi Colin. Good to see you here. Glad to see discussion on this tournament has ramped up a bit. The Chessbase article on Ivanchuk is out now (actually, rather than generically mentioning Chessbase, I should credit Michael von Keitz, former President of the Canadian Chess Federation, who is writing the series of articles):

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/ ... 60313.aspx

(Not sure I like the new look of the Chessbase News website, but I suppose we will all get used to it)

Interesting to see the full (and long) history (all the way back to 1985) of the games between Ivanchuk and Gelfand, who were "rising junior stars in the former Soviet Union". Very interesting that Aronian and Ivanchuk have more decisive games than draws. Fascinating how some styles match up to produce more decisive games.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The pairings have now been published

http://www.worldchess.com/candidates/pr ... irings.pdf

Aronian white against Carlsen in round one.

Does anyone know how the draw was done?

[Andrew Bak]

At the moment we are spoilt for choice with top quality chess in this country (well, London!) and I'm really looking forward to this one, might even pop down there myself!

Michael's articles are very interesting, although I must admit that I haven't gone through the collections of games he's compiled all that closely!

I'm sure no-one on this forum would ever dream of betting, but here are the odds that BWin have put on the tournament:

Carlsen 9/20
Kramnik 4/1
Aronian 5/1
Grischuk 25/1
Radjabov 25/1
Ivanchuk 28/1
Gelfand 50/1
Svidler 66/1

[Mick Norris]

Does anyone know how the draw was done?

Yes, it was done at the FIDE offices, but it took 3 attempts to meet the regulation that the Russian players have to play each other in the rounds 1-3 and 8-10

[David Gilbert]

I've been keeping an eye on http://www.locatetv.com/uk/listings and so far no sign of any Candidates coverage on either of the Sky Arts channels. Nothing chess-related on the Sky Arts website, either.

Current listings only go up to March 18, and these may of course not be set in stone.

But I remain curious as to what (if anything) to expect, especially after such a long time with no chess TV programming!

There's no TV coverage, at least none from Sunset & Vine for Sky Arts.

"I must apologise that you have been misinformed in this way. We have certainly been talking to the World Chess organisers and to Sky Arts, but nothing has ever been confirmed nor any commitments made. I don’t know how the journalist made these assumptions.
If you are interested I believe there will be a daily feed from the tournament on the internet.

Kind regards

John Leach
Managing Director
Sunset+Vine"

[Matthew Turner]

They are now offering a 20% discount on ticket prices for ECF members. Bad news for those who have already bought tickets, but it suggests sales might not be going as well as hoped?