2018 World Championship in London

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Lovely finish, with the exchange sacrifice on move 38 calculated to end with 44.Nb8 to force the pawn promotion.

[Mike Gunn]

I have managed to buy a ticket for round 3 (Monday November 12th). The £45 tickets weren't available for rounds 1 or 2. The tickets for Kasparov-Short and Kasparov-Kramnik were both £20 as far as I can recall, but £45 is the kind of price you can expect to pay to attend a Premier League football match these days so it's not completely out of line with equivalent entertainment prices.

[J T Melsom]

I have managed to buy a ticket for round 3 (Monday November 12th). The £45 tickets weren't available for rounds 1 or 2. The tickets for Kasparov-Short and Kasparov-Kramnik were both £20 as far as I can recall, but £45 is the kind of price you can expect to pay to attend a Premier League football match these days so it's not completely out of line with equivalent entertainment prices.

The analogy with the Premier League is a good one, but lets hope this isn't a case of paying a lot of money to see top players only to be served up a dull draw.

[Chris Rice]

Caruana signs up.

[Trefor Owens]

Caruana signs up.

I haven't seen any online confirmation of this, I believe that today is the deadline, have Carlsen and Caruana signed on the dotted line?

[Alex Holowczak]

Caruana signs up.

I haven't seen any online confirmation of this, I believe that today is the deadline, have Carlsen and Caruana signed on the dotted line?

I don't think of myself as an Agon apologist, but how much more confirmation of Caruana signing up do you need than the guy who's organising the match tweeting that Caruana signed it? Is he supposed to include a photo of the contract?

[Nick Grey]

£45 is cheap compared to an international sports event, concert, theatre, dining out, etc so why complain?

The comparison between premier league match is not valid. Champions League arguably so. Or tickets at Wembley Stadium?
Unfortunately there is only one team in the Champions League based in London and it does not have a stadium at the moment to play football in. So is going to have a problem in fulfilling commitments. Hopefully both competitions will kick out the club concerned. I have an unhealthy bias against football clubs based in North London.

It is worrying that the terrorist vehicle may have been driving around the area in the early hours of yesterday morning. All I can say I be careful where vehicles are concerned and let's go around our normal enjoyment of city life.

Other than tickets on sale on Monday nights are generally when my chess club are expecting our chess players to play chess in our adult leagues.

Maybe there will be a note at tomorrow's league constitution/fixtures meeting?

[JustinHorton]

how much more confirmation of Caruana signing up do you need than the guy who's organising the match tweeting that Caruana signed it?

Hang on, Merenzon tweeting that something is true is sufficient evidence that something is true?

[Graham Borrowdale]

Assuming that the match is going ahead in London, and I don't see any reason to doubt that it will, which round would people suggest for a single visit? Mike Gunn has already confessed to booking round 3, and says rounds 1 and 2 are not available, which is fine because the first couple of games were very cagey last time if I remember. I was thinking of game 3 or 4, although Carlsen could come out of the blocks and win the first two games, in which case it will all be over very quickly.

[Alex Holowczak]

how much more confirmation of Caruana signing up do you need than the guy who's organising the match tweeting that Caruana signed it?

Hang on, Merenzon tweeting that something is true is sufficient evidence that something is true?

I guess if I'd made the same tweet in the same situation, I'd get pretty upset if people didn't consider that to be true.

Signing a contract is an inherently uninteresting thing to do though. It wouldn't occur to me to expect either player to excitedly tweet that a contract has been signed.

[Stewart Reuben]

Past experience shows variance in the quality of games.
Fischer-Spassky. Started out with nonsense. Then it settled down to fighting chess. Bobby said the most difficult phase was drawing his way to the title. That was not his usual style.
Karpov-Korchnoi 1978. Was very tense. It reached 5-2 and then Korchnoi made a breakthrough to level it at 5-5.
Karpov-Kasparov, the first match. Had an interninable set of dull draws.
Kasparov-Karpov. There was little variance. Interest in attending the match grew, probably because of increasing publicity.
Kasparov-Short was 3.5-0.5 and the match was virtually over by then. But the games in the middle of he match were more interesting. Once Kasparov lost a game, he shut up shop and drew his way to 12.5 points.
Kasparov-Kramnik was at its most interesting at the start. Gary seemed uterly to lose heart. It was very disappointing.

[Mike Gunn]

Actually tickets were available for rounds 1 and 2 but they cost £600. I went for the first day with £45 tickets.

[NickFaulks]

Actually tickets were available for rounds 1 and 2 but they cost £600.

But you would probably have been sitting between Roger Federer and Madonna.

[Nigel White]

Actually tickets were available for rounds 1 and 2 but they cost £600. I went for the first day with £45 tickets.

Round 2 tickets are now available for £70, but I don't think I will be tempted at that price.

[JustinHorton]

how much more confirmation of Caruana signing up do you need than the guy who's organising the match tweeting that Caruana signed it?

Hang on, Merenzon tweeting that something is true is sufficient evidence that something is true?

I guess if I'd made the same tweet in the same situation, I'd get pretty upset if people didn't consider that to be true.

And do you regard your track record for veracity to be better, worse or much the same as Ilya Merenzon's?