In less than couple of hours from now, the 7th game in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2013 will commence. The question is whether the reigning World Champion Vishwanathan Anand can turn around his 2 game losing streak to become competitive against Magnus Carlsen.
Supporters of Anand, no doubt, would point out that Vishy Anand has a history of bouncing back - he did so against Veselin Topalov (in 2010) and Boris Gelfand (in 2012). That if Magnus Carlsen can win 2 games out of six, so can Anand.
The counter is it is difficult to comeback from 2 games down; more so when the second defeat is a successive one with White pieces; and of course, Carlsen is not Topalov or Gelfand.
Watching the games it is obvious why Magnus Carlsen is often termed the Master of endgame. He waits there calmly, making optimal moves one after other, grinding Anand down till he commits a blunder - in the 5th or 6th hour.
Thus, Anand is caught in a bind. His best chances to ward off Carlsen is to quickly push for a draw in a couple of hours, in as few moves as possible. And spectators be damned, as we saw in the first two rounds.
OTOH, Vishy cannot get back to winning ways and retain the Championship without going head to head into a gruelling 6 hour endgame with Magnus.
At the end of game 5 on Friday, I quipped to my niece (an ~1800 FIDE ranked player herself) that Vishy Anand may well lose the next 3 games. On Friday she, naturally, bristled and defended Anand.
On Sunday evening, she herself admitted that it is going to be difficult for Anand to win back 2 games. Though she is yet to come around to the view that Anand might well lose the rounds 7 and 8, thus ending the tournament tomorrow.
:-(
You can download the latest PGN file WorldChamp2013.pgn from the folder link here. Note that the link is to a folder and clicking it will display the file with the option to download. Cheers!
Supporters of Anand, no doubt, would point out that Vishy Anand has a history of bouncing back - he did so against Veselin Topalov (in 2010) and Boris Gelfand (in 2012). That if Magnus Carlsen can win 2 games out of six, so can Anand.
Yesterday I quipped Anand would lose next 3 games and champship. Seems 2 be coming true :-D #anandcarlsen #FWCM2013
— madmadrasi (@madmadrasi) November 16, 2013
The counter is it is difficult to comeback from 2 games down; more so when the second defeat is a successive one with White pieces; and of course, Carlsen is not Topalov or Gelfand.
Watching the games it is obvious why Magnus Carlsen is often termed the Master of endgame. He waits there calmly, making optimal moves one after other, grinding Anand down till he commits a blunder - in the 5th or 6th hour.
Thus, Anand is caught in a bind. His best chances to ward off Carlsen is to quickly push for a draw in a couple of hours, in as few moves as possible. And spectators be damned, as we saw in the first two rounds.
OTOH, Vishy cannot get back to winning ways and retain the Championship without going head to head into a gruelling 6 hour endgame with Magnus.
At the end of game 5 on Friday, I quipped to my niece (an ~1800 FIDE ranked player herself) that Vishy Anand may well lose the next 3 games. On Friday she, naturally, bristled and defended Anand.
On Sunday evening, she herself admitted that it is going to be difficult for Anand to win back 2 games. Though she is yet to come around to the view that Anand might well lose the rounds 7 and 8, thus ending the tournament tomorrow.
:-(
You can download the latest PGN file WorldChamp2013.pgn from the folder link here. Note that the link is to a folder and clicking it will display the file with the option to download. Cheers!
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