Carlsen v. Karjakin

[Riflin'Joe]

Any predictions? Surely Carlsen will win, but by what score? (Then again, this has been quite the year for surprise results...)

 

[Richard Cribb]

First of all. I don't agree at all that Carlsen necessarily will win. He is an enormously strong player, but no great player. And he has his weaknesses.
I have barely seen the first four games. They are rather uninspired, and who has benefited from them from a psychological point of view is a difficult question. However, I think Karjakin can ill afford to get inferior positions in game after game, and to me his match strategy so far has been a bad one. But there is still plenty of time to repair that, even if the length of these matches are ridiculously short, what was wrong with the old format... So I am not prepared to give any predictions, but I might be after a couple of more games.

 

[Snerk]

Been following(ish) the games and Carlsen seems out of balance of sorts, specially in the second half of the games. Yesterday's blunder was pretty weak. Still, overall he's IMO looking like the strongest player and I'd be surprised if he doesn't win it.

 

[Richard Cribb]

And unfortunately, it all ended with wrong person winning. I feel the urge to quote myself, here is something I wrote on FaceBook after the 8th game and the ensuing press conference.
"He may be the world champion but my world champion he will never be. He is just a brat in an expensive suit. An ungrateful, uncorteous silk thug who thinks that the whole world is his oyster. One who makes me ashamed of my nationality. Of course, his minions are there to defend him; he is such a precious snowflake, such a delicate genius that he can't be different, mediocrities like myself can't understand such greatness presumably. And besides this sort of behaviour makes him play better, just as it did with John McEnroe. Oh, and he will win. People like him always seem to do. He will edge out his opponent who seems to decent to be the champion of this game I once enjoyed, They say chess don't create, but reveal character. In that case it is a pity that Magnus Carlsen ever started playing it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcsiAL5Pq
Let me add. I am Norwegian. I have had the dubious pleasure to experience Carlsen in real life. He is just as you can experience him when not absolutely everything goes his way, sullen, rude, unimaginative.
He plays chess that way too. You really need to be a starry-eyed admirer or a one-track minded chauvinist to appreciate his mercantile style. He is not a great strategist, he doesn't manouever very well, but he is a typical product of his molly-coddled background and the society he has grown up in, where everything that matters is the win, the gold medal, the spondulicks, and the feeling of entitlement understood in the way that everybody else exist to be his servant,
But enough about that uninteresting person; what is really scandalous is of course that the world championship is to be decided by non-classical chess. This is not something new, and indeed the same thing happened before, but nonetheless. Ridiculous.

 

[Snerk]

The video link isn't working.

I've always seen him more as awkward than arrogant. Weather he's on the spectrum or not I do not know but I wouldn't put him anywhere near the types of McEnroe who display a much more controlled anger and general bad loser attitude.
From watching various interviews I'd say that it's pretty clear that he struggles with normal/typical composure in several situations and scenarios. Adversity in chess world championship is obviously one of these. His reaction to just about everything is off or in some way a little awkward. His reaction to losing game 8 was very poor and was of poor sportsmanship, and more than that it was quite disrespectful towards his opponent.
Nonetheless it doesn't provokes me all that much as to me it seems there something more here than just a grumpy guy. And I guess chess genii do have a tendency to sprout in personalities who fails to conform to the norm of social skills.

 

[Richard Cribb]

Not so. I have experienced him and I know people who know him pretty well. On the whole Norwegian chess isn't a larger scene than if one has been inside it one gets a keen perspective on it. And there is something which is not healthy about it.
Your guess is not a very accurate one, I am afraid. Apart from the difficulty in establishing who is really a chess genius (on the whole I am less enthusiastic of the term genius used in any context), many of the greatest chess player in history seem to have been decent, sociable people with a wide scope of interests, also in the world around them. I think one would find that those with a more asocial behaviour would represent a minority, at least judging from the people who held the title of world champion and those belonging to the elite. Perhaps it is, as hinted, of importance what sort of society and social class they grew up in. And that society's perspective on chess as a whole.

 

[Sprenk]

Let me add. I am Norwegian. I have had the dubious pleasure to experience Carlsen in real life. He is just as you can experience him when not absolutely everything goes his way, sullen, rude, unimaginative.
He plays chess that way too. You really need to be a starry-eyed admirer or a one-track minded chauvinist to appreciate his mercantile style. He is not a great strategist, he doesn't manouever very well, but he is a typical product of his molly-coddled background and the society he has grown up in, where everything that matters is the win, the gold medal, the spondulicks, and the feeling of entitlement understood in the way that everybody else exist to be his servant,
But enough about that uninteresting person; what is really scandalous is of course that the world championship is to be decided by non-classical chess. This is not something new, and indeed the same thing happened before, but nonetheless. Ridiculous.

This is painful to read. Do you realize how you are coming off? Like someone with a personal grudge. When I see character assassination, I think worse of the assassin--not the assassin's target.

I'm also less than impressed with your description of Carlsen's style. "Mercantile"? I prefer Kasparov or Tal, myself--but I recognize there is a place in the development of chess for those of the Capablanca / Petrosian / Karpov mode. But you have to be able to play in a "universal" style in this day and age, so Carlsen also has some nice attacking wins to his credit. Certainly the way he finished the final rapid playoff game was spectacular.

You may be able to imagine someone you'd prefer as world champion, stylistically, to Carlsen--but that someone would not be Karjakin. Alas, Sergei, although he fought hard and deserves credit for that, seemed to be playing very defensively and unambitiously in this match. Like "parking the bus" in a football match. I'm glad those tactics didn't win him the championship.

 

[thetrooper]

Did this age well?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not at all, lol. Whether or not you like him as a person (I don't know enough/care), his sustained performance puts him on the short list of all time greats by now.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not following chess, but Hikaru (and virtually everyone else? ) seems to have a more pleasant character.
Also, imo chess championships should always be won by russians ^_^

Personally I don't find chess that good, intellectually. There is a limited number of moves - which quickly becomes very limited after the first few moves - and a dedicated player can live on chess theory. Although the time restraint does complicate things.

 

[Fippy]

Are you saying Beth Harmon isn't the worlds best chess player?

 

[Kyriakos]

Are you saying Beth Harmon isn't the worlds best chess player?

Is that show any good or just lazy/sensationalist?

 

[Fippy]

Good imo, Magnus also approved the chess tactics quality.
Are there cheesy parts? Ofc..but a good finale makes up for much and QG ends strong imo.

 

[thetrooper]

Karjakin not subtle at all regarding his support to Putin.

Makes me even more happy that Carlsen beat him.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

while i do not agree with karjakin's opinions, him getting banned from candidates seems like garbage. bad expressed opinions outside the context of competition should not tarnish the competition itself. what did he say, exactly, that this counts sufficiently as an ethics violation?

there will be some major hypocrisy if ding liren has said anything positive about ccp in the past year and yet he is allowed to compete. i don't consider systematic genocide particularly better depending on whether there is officially a war or not.

 

[thetrooper]

Aged like milk, aye?

Cancel all the way.