World Chess Championship Candidates Starts Tomorrow

Written by Administrator

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

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By GM Daniel Gormally, England.
Best rating: FIDE 2573

Vishy Anand- is the old king now the kingmaker?

And should be very exciting. This is the tournament that will establish the first challenger to the young Norwegian superstar, 23 year old world champion Magnus Carlsen.

The favourite is Levon Aronian, who is the world number two and has a big lead in rating over the next obvious choice of the pundits, Vladimir Kramnik.

Now of course favourites don't always win, but Aronian and Carlsen seem so far clear of the rest of the chess elite that whatever the outcome here I would be amazed if they didn't meet in a match at some point. It reminds me of the days of the Kasparov-Karpov matches, when regardless of what happened in the meanwhile, you just knew they were heading for confrontation over the board.

Of course for Aronian there is a lot of pressure, because in Armenia chess is huge (currently the European individual championship is taking place in Yerevan) and he is rightly feted as a hero in that country. But if he does manage to qualify, that vast interest will surely work in his favour in a match with Carlsen.

Every Armenian chess player will be working around the clock trying to find novelties to bust the Norwegian's openings. Perhaps that won't be enough, but in any case my opinion is that Aronian is the only player from the candidates that has a realistic chance of beating Carlsen in a match.

Fans of Kramnik (and perhaps Kramnik himself) might take umbrage to that statement, but realistically he would be up against it in a match. He is giving Carlsen 15 years in age, and is incredibly almost 100 rating points lower than the current champion. Of course ELO isn't everything, but that's still an awful lot.

The other problem for prospective opponents of the Norwegian is that they will be becoming aware that Carlsen is reaching a level now that is almost untouchable- that seems to be above anything we've ever seen before, even from the great champions of the past like Fischer and Kasparov. When I look at his play lately, it seems that every other game is a masterpiece. Chess is scarily easy for him now and Aronian aside, I think he'd sweep anyone else from the board.

It couldn't happen again, could it?

That is why I cannot see the previous champion, Viswanathan Anand winning the Candidates. I just can't see what the motivation for Anand would be to face Carlsen again. He would have as much chance of winning a rematch as the England football team have of winning the World cup.

But he could still have a pivotal affect on the outcome. If we see Aronian and Kramnik as the two favourites, well it's worth looking at their respective scores against the Indian Grandmaster.

Whereas Aronian has a comfortable plus score against Anand, Kramnik's lifetime score is nothing like as impressive and indeed he has already lost a World title match to the maestro from Madras.

In a tournament where the margins could be so tight, such a factor may ultimately prove decisive.

P.S. Bonus from Pogonina.com - current results of the Candidates'2014 poll: