English Chess Forum

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:52 pm

Mamedyarov 0 Ding 1

Pah, spoilsport.

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:52 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:01 pm

Round 12 about to get underway:

1 GM Grischuk, A. (6) 2767 — — GM Aronian, L. (3½) 2794
2 GM Karjakin, S. (6) 2763 — — GM Caruana, F. (7) 2784
3 GM Kramnik, V. (5) 2800— — GM So, Wesley (4½) 2799
4 GM Mamedyarov (6½) 2809— — GM Ding, Liren (5½) 2769

Mamedyarov 0 Ding 1. Mamedyarov may remain half off the lead though..............

Followed by Karjakin 1 Caruana 0 and Grischuk-Aronian draw.

Looking at the table on Chess24, the leading four (taking it as right that Mamedyarov is fifth) appear to be the four with the lowest ratings.

Despite not performing here only Aronian could actually beat Carlsen in my opinion.

DING DING! - All aboard

He's going to have to drive that bus all.the way to eight and a half points if you're going to collect, I reckon.

So suddenly five are in contention and Ding is the only unbeaten player. He has White against Kramnik next, and finally Black against Karjakin.

Mamedyarov and Grischuk meet on Monday, both needing to win really.

I would expect So to draw with Karjakin and Caruana must somehow find a way to beat Aronian to avoid the negative tiebreak blues.

I had been planning to go to London to watch a round or two of the world championship match but if Karjakin is the challenger again I won't bother.

Bet365 have Karjakin at evens and Caruana at 6/5 (Ding and Mamedyarov 12, Grischuk 14).

I'm thinking that if Karjakin gets to 8 points, it'd take 8.5 to beat him because of his tie-break, but in fact Mamedyarov would beat him on that total, is that right? On the other hand, Mamedyarov would lose out if Ding got to 8 and Karjakin did not....

Carl Hibbard wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:39 pm

Despite not performing here only Aronian could actually beat Carlsen in my opinion.

I completely disagree. Aronian time and again seem to underperform in the candidates, this only make me think it would perform even worse under the pressure of a world championship match.

Given the historical results, in my opinion Caruana, Giri, Karjakin and possibly Kramnik probably have the best chances against Carlsen. We might not like it from a spectator’s point of view, but there’s no player today that would have good chances of defeating Carlsen charging towards him head first. Unfortunately, Karjakin demonstrated the best strategy of avoiding losing and see what happens, combined with wide & deep opening preparation, most of which will never come to fruition but you might need only one or two hits. It does not necessarily make for a very exciting match, but how exciting would it be to watch Carlsen massacre Aronian, Mamedjarov or Nakamura?

There's a lot to that, but perhaps it's not so much a question of style, as who can put Carlsen under pressure (which has a lot to do with preparation) and keep their nerve. Does anybody other than Karjakin have both qualities? I'd have said Kramnik, but it's not going to be him. I don't quite believe in Caruana under pressure. Grischuk's shown nerve all right but I'm not sure I believe in his game or his preparation.

How set in stone is the London WCC? Might Russia try to get it moved if Karjakin qualifies?

Well it's not so set in stone that we know what the venue's supposed to be.

Richard Bates wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:21 pm

How set in stone is the London WCC? Might Russia try to get it moved if Karjakin qualifies?

Maybe the UK government could refuse Karjakin a visa because of his support for Putin!

Tim Harding wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:25 pm

Maybe the UK government could refuse Karjakin a visa because of his support for Putin!

I said here a week ago that it was a mistake to write off Karjakin's chances after two losses, and I would like to see him win. He tied the last WC match and since then he has improved while Carlsen has not ( perhaps there wasn't much room to do so ). It could be like the 1969 Petrosian - Spassky rematch.

I am disappointed by the hatred of Russians which has surfaced on this forum. I am reminded of a Joel Benjamin story of when he was a member of a US student team which visited Russia during the Cold War, for a match viewed at home as a contest between good and evil. They suffered a culture shock when met at the airport by Artur Yusupov, whom they immediately felt was the nicer person they had ever met.

I agree some of the dislike of Karjakin on political grounds is severely overdone (for instance Kramnik is also pretty pro-Putin etc, but never seems to attract as much opprobrium on that score) I simply don't want to see a repeat of the 2016 match because I genuinely believe that a different challenger for Carlsen this time would produce more interesting chess.