Magnus Carlsen after winning the 2013 Candidates Tournament
The 2013 Candidates Tournament is over. MagnusCarlsen won and is now the official challenger of Viswanathan Anand. I have been following international chess for almost 20 years now, and I can unequivocally say that this was one of the best tournaments I've ever seen. Many great games, unexpected results, and lots of drama till the very end. What more could chess fans have asked for?
Thanks to the internet and live streams it's also become much easier to share in the excitement of top level chess tournaments. I remember when I first got into chess and my parents bought me a one year subscription of a chess magazine, it just wasn't the same. Without the real-time experience, all the drama is lost. In fact I find watching chess tournaments online even more exciting than the seemingly more fast-paced Starcraft 2 events such as MLG.
I'm not surprised that Carlsen won the whole thing, but I certainly didn't expect it to come about the way it did. I thought I would see a neck-and-neck race between Carlsen and Kramnik all the way. Instead, the first half of the tournament saw Carlsen and Aronian pulling ahead of the field while Kramnik failed to convert his many promising positions into a single win.
And just when I thought Kramnik was out of the running for sure, he pulled a pretty impressive comeback while Aronian completely collapsed at the beginning of the second half of the tournament.
Many in the chess community seem relieved that there will not be a rematch of Anand - Kramnik 2008. I am not so sure. Leaving aside the fact that rematches are kind of fascinating in themselves, I do think that a second encounter between the two would have produced much more interesting chess simply because Kramnik was clearly out of form in 2008. Foto by Fred Lucas.
Magnus Carlsen: I'm not surprised that he won the candidates tournament. I am surprised however that he managed to squeeze so many points out of drawn positions, especially in the first half of the tournament. It's really instructive to see how he so "effortlessly" keeps accumulating tiny advantages until he's got enough to convert the position into a win. I often have "dead drawn" positions just like he has, but of course I lack his superb positional skills. My play is just too inaccurate to capitalize on tiny positional imbalances the way Carlsen does.
Some commentators - rightfully in my opinion - pointed out Carlsen's comparatively weak opening repertoire. While his skill to win drawn positions is remarkable, it is equally remarkable to see that a player of his calibre more often than not fails to get any advantage out of the opening, especially when playing white. I know it is his strategy to deviate from well-known theoretical lines early in order to render his opponents' preparation useless and force them to start using up time early. On the other hand though this approach does allow his opponents to equalize without much effort.
Against a well-prepared Anand, Carlsen will most certainly have to show better opening preparation. At this tournament, Carlsen got most of his wins from the lower half of the field. In the match with Anand, there is no lower half.
Magnus Carlsen and Boris Gelfand at the 2012 Wijk "Super Tournament". Maybe Carlsen has really bad body odor. Or maybe Gelfand simply had a cold. Foto by Fred Lucas
Vladimir Kramnik:one of my personal favorites and the tragic hero of the tournament. He's been criticized for having lost his interest in chess after getting married and having two kids a few years ago. In fact similar things are being said about Anand. Kramnik however showed fantastic chess in London, and this tournament has been called "maybe his best performance ever" by Garry Kasparov. I think Kramnik is still a very serious contender for the world championship title, and might very well win the next candidates tournament, especially if Carlsen beats Anand later this year.
They also used a new chess set at the Candidates Tournament. I agree with the criticism voiced by some of the players that the pieces are a little too big for the board.
A critical skill for any chess player to have is the ability to accurately and systematically analyze positions. During a chess game it is very tempting to just look at "interesting" moves or randomly start calculating variations. This approach however, will almost always neglect the deeper positional characteristics of a position. And unless you're playing blitz, this will also make it hard to make good use of the time allotted to you.
Therefore, now that we have covered some of the basic tactical elements in chess, in our last lesson I taught Pyre a more systematic way to analyze a position, and form a plan based on the results of the analysis.
There are many good books about this topic. I think eventually I'll post a list of useful resources for beginners and novices. The approach I was taught many years ago by my first chess coach is based on Karpov and Mazukevich's recommendations in their book "Find the Right Plan". By the way I think this is a book that does not get the attention it deserves.
The basic idea is that in order to choose the right course of action, a chess player must first have a good understanding of the current position. This will not only make it easier to select a good plan, it will also help identifying candidate moves.
According to Karpov and Mazukevich, to get a good understanding of any given position, a player must look at each of the following 7 evaluation criteria: 1. Material Balance 2. Immediate Threats 3. King Safety 4. Open Files 5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares 6. Center and Space 7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces
This analysis does not need to be performed after every move, but it has to be done regularly. For example, a player could form the habit of doing this after move 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. This analysis should also be done whenever the position on the board changes dramatically, for example after a player sacrifices material.
After discussing these principles in general terms, Pyre and I looked at an example to practice this approach. We analyzed the game between Boris Gelfand and Vassily Ivanchuk from the 2013 Canadidates Tournament in London, which had been played earlier the same day. The players reached the following position after Gelfand's 17th move Ng5:
Gelfand-Ivanchuk at the 2013 FIDE Candidates Tournament in London 2013; position after 17. Ng5
We tried to to come up with a good plan for Black. As the first step, we analyzed the position through the lens of the 7 evaluation criteria:
1. Material Balance: the material balance is even. The only difference is that White has the bishop pair and a knight while Black has two knights an a bishop. 2. Immediate Threats:neither side has any immediate tactical or positional threats. 3. King Safety:Both kings are fairly safe. Black and White have castled queenside which means that neither side can easily launch a pawn storm on the opponent. Due to the missing c-pawn, White's king is a little bit more exposed, but this will probably not have a significant impact on the game. 4. Open Files:There are no open files in this position. White has the half-open c- and g-files available to him and could potentially double up rooks on either of them. Black currently controls the half-open d-file. 5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares: Despite the double pawn on the f-file, White has the better pawn structure. He doesn't have any potentially weak pawns. At the same time his pawns control many important central squares.
White has strong squares on e5 and g5, and possibly c5 even though Black can control that square with a pawn if necessary. F3 is a weak square though it is currently not easy for Black to place a piece there. White's pawn structure also does not have any real weaknesses.
Black on the other hand has (somewhat) strong squares on e4 and d5, but also several weak squares: e5, g5 and g6 are permanently weak, and c5 can only be controlled if Black is willing to compromise his queenside pawn structure. The backward pawn on g7 is weak and in an endgame the pawns on e6 and h4 are potential weaknesses as well. 6. Center and Space:The center is closed. White has a slightly more solid pawn mass in the center while Black's minor pieces better control the central squares. Neither side has an obvious space advantage. Both Black and White have more mobility on the queen side than the king side. 7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces:Both sides have completed their development. The white knight on the strong square g5 looks impressive, but it is unclear what role it serves there. This in fact may be a good example that a "strong" square isn't necessarily also a "useful" square. White also has the bishop pair. The bishop on c4 is very strong indeed, indirectly targeting the Black's weak pawn on e6. The bishop could also pin Black's knight on c6, which could be very unpleasant for Black indeed, especially if White doubles up in the half-open c-file. However, White's main problem and in fact the defining characteristic of this position is the bad bishop on h2. The bishop doesn't contribute anything to White's game, and activating or exchanging it will require a lot of time.
Formulating a Plan:
After this in-depth analysis of the position, we started formulating a plan for Black. In my opinion assessing the 7 evaluation criteria is the easier part. It is more difficult to come to the right conclusion what the analysis of these criteria means, and which of the criteria are more important than others in any given position. For example, is it more important that White has the better pawn structure in this position, or that Black has two knights, which in a closed position such as this one should be favorable? It takes a lot of skill and experience to draw the right conclusions from the analysis. However, for Pyre's purposes it isn't important to get it right 100% all the time. In fact, even grandmasters regularly get this kind of analysis wrong. The point is that if Pyre learns to do this analysis regularly and systematically, he'll be able to take his chess to the next level.
In this example the critical point is to realize that White's bad bishop on h2 is the single most important characteristic of the position. Basic chess strategy recommends that when one of your opponent's pieces is - temporarily or permanently - locked out of the game, the right course of action is typically opening up the game on the other side of the board because that is where in essence your opponent will be a piece down.
In this position Black can achieve that by playing c7-c5, ideally after bringing the rooks over to the c-file. The thrust c7-c5 opens the position without exposing Black's king too much.
The game ended in a draw because as so often Ivanchuk ended up in time trouble and couldn't convert the very promising position he achieved after opening the game on the queenside.
However, for the purpose of this exercise it isn't necessary to analyze the remainder of the game. The important point was to do an in-depth analysis of a given position with Pyre, which is something we'll keep doing going forward.
Vassily Ivanchuk and MarineKingPrime
A Word about Vassily Ivanchuk:
To me, Vassily Ivanchuk is the MarineKingPrime of the chess world. "Chucky" as he's called is one of the most brilliant players on the chess circuit, and has been a dominant force at the top level for many years. However, his inability to keep his nerves under control has prevented him from ever being a serious contender for the world championship title, or win more top level tournaments. In the 2013 Candidates tournament alone he's already lost 3 games on time.
Despite his volatile performance, Ivanchuk is one of the very few players who, on a good day, can beat anybody, including Carlsen, Anand, and the rock-solid Kramnik.
All of this is very reminiscent of MarineKingPrime who clearly has the skills to win MLGs but rarely does so because - among other things - it seems he is a little too emotional and nervous.
The following clip is from a chess olympiad match between Ivanchuk and Kramnik:
I'd be nervous too if I was playing Vladimir Kramnik, though 2700 ELO Super GMs typically play their moves a little more confidently than Ivanchuk does here.
Nevertheless, Ivanchuk is a fan favorite, and I have great admiration and respect for his creative chess, too!
Magnus Carlsen during one of the early rounds of the 2013 Candidates tournament
We are almost at the half-way mark of the 2013 Candidates tournament in London. Most people seem to expect Carlsen to win the tournament.
Well... time is on Carlsen's side, therefore I would like to see Aronian or maybe even Kramnik win the chance to play a match with Anand. Carlsen will become world champion sooner or later anyway. In the meantime Aronian and Kramnik deserve a shot at the title. I like Aronian for his creative and tactical play style, and Kramnik is simply one of the most solid players around. His win rate isn't quite as impressive as it used to be, but he almost never loses a game, and considering the high caliber tournaments he's playing in that really is quite an achievement. However, with almost half the games played in London it is already pretty clear that Kramnik lost his chances to take first place. Right now it's a neck to neck race between Carlsen and Aronian. I hope Aronian comes out ahead, but I fear it'll be Carlsen. I have nothing against Carlsen, in fact I admire his seemingly effortless style of winning drawish positions. I just think success is coming a little too quick for him. If he has to work for the title just a few years more, he'll most certainly become a better player overall.
Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian at the opening ceremony of the FIDE Candidates
Tournament in London
Garry Kasparov is on record saying that winning the candidates tournament is more difficult than beating Anand in the subsequent match. I'm inclined to agree.
