Three 2800s Square Off!
While Viswanathan Anand (India), Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) have played in a number of tournaments together, the Nanjing International will be the first recorded tournament where three players with 2800 FIDE ratings will compete. This tournament is in its third edition and features six strong Grandmasters. Rounding out the field will be Wang Yue (China), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan) and Etienne Bacrot (France).
The tournament will be held from October 19th to October 30th in Nanjing, China. It will be a 10-round double round-robin event. Round one will start tomorrow.
Incredible NONTRADITIONAL play by Wang Yue !!! I wouldnt be surprised if he took first place, in spite of their old rating system. Its clear the United States have a big advantage over the rest of the world ,actually you can go to their traditional sites to read the old analysis and its clear they seem to be strugglin to explain the HORSEMOVES strategically , they give a few general comments about the position and use their traditional machines to evaluate or help them with their novelties. When i get a chance Um gunna switch over to Susan Polgar’s site to get a feminine perspective on these games ,according to their traditions they think women are weaker in chess ya know? But i think chess is so easy even Simba can do it! ( oh, thats her new puppy) i seen him in a simul on her site, hehe. Anyone doing analysis here? Peace.
Don’t forget that Aronian could become the official world #1 on the November list…he’s now over 2800 after beating Ivanchuk in Bulgaria.
That’s because the 2800s of today are all better than the 2700s of 20 years ago…unless you seriously think that Yusupov (who was #3 behind Kasparov and Karpov) is in the league with someone like Carlsen or Aronian.
Its the same reason why someone like Kobe Bryant 2009 is better than Jerry West 1969…the speed of the game and athleticism are at a different level today (just like the level of preparation and use of computers makes top-level chess much stronger today). There are only a few in either game that transcend this (Kasparov in chess, Jordan and Chamberlain in basketball are good examples).
those comparisons i believe they dont work. its like saying mothers of today are better at raising children than mothers in the 1st century. the bottom line is we are alive today because the mothers of the 1st century did raise us well same as chess the champions of today are there simply because of the past legend players.
Can carlsen top 2900 by end next year???????
Daaim,
There are a lot of blunders in EVERY tournament…even the super-GM tourneys. The winner will make the fewest mistakes — not no mistakes. That’s the way it has always been.
That being said, there are very few 2700s from the 80s-90s in the league with the top 5 players of today. Anand, Kramnik and Topalov are better now than they were in the 90s, and other than Kasparov and Karpov, no other top player from that era is as good as the top players now.
Congrats to Carlsen…he continues to prove he is the real deal. People are so prone to overreaction — he had a bad stretch of 15 games (during which he still beat Jakovenko and Shirov, BTW), but is clearly now back on course. The Candidates in April 2011 will be fun. Also looking forward to seeing Hikaru’s games at the Tal Memorial in a few weeks.
Kasparov made startling blunders as well…we just don’t remember them. He resigned in a clearly drawn position during one of his super-GM tournaments while he was world champ. Also the end of the Kasparov-Karpov 1987 match was filled with blunders — plus who can forget the final Deep Blue-Kasparov 1997 game — that was about as bad as missing a mate-in-one.
Karpov’s strength was never his opening analysis, while that is one of Kramnik’s strengths — as he showed in taking the title from Kasparov without losing once in their 15 game match!! BTW, 1975 Karpov wasn’t even the best or highest-rated player in the world…as we all know.
Kasparov is the most versatile player ever, which is why he remained dominant for so long and why to me he is GOAT. During much of Karpov’s era of dominance (1975-1985) his rivals were not as strong as Kasparov’s (obviously, b/c Karpov was still in his prime when Kasparov first became champion, while Karpov never had to play Fischer or anyone as strong as Anand during his prime) which is why he was able dominate his era — no way is prime Korchnoi or postprime Tal superior to Anand or Kramnik. I seriously doubt that prime Korchnoi is superior to even prime Ivanchuk, BTW.
A good analogy is in tennis…Pete Sampras may have been #1 more weeks than Federer, but that’s because he never faced anyone as good as Nadal in his era (not even Agassi). It’s not just how long someone remains dominant, its about the level of their competition in doing so. This makes Anand already one of the top 5-7 players of all time — I don’t think he’ll ever top Kasparov, but he could reach #2 all-time if he wins in 2012 and 2014.