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Jun-14-12
 | | alexmagnus: Chessmetrics uses a totally different system than Elo. Now, if you have time on your hands and calculate Elo back in time, then let the numbers talk :) |
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Jun-14-12
| | alexmagnus: Also, Anand eventually <did> become WC, so 10 and not 11. Another notable thing: most of the mentioned people stem from the time when the champ picked his oponents. Maroczy, Rubinstein, Pillsbury, Reshevsky, Fine never got even a chance to challenge. |
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Jun-16-12
 | | Eyal: From Anand's interview with chessvibes on the match: <I actually think people simply underestimate what Boris did in this match. How well he had prepared and worked. The first thing I'll say is that my play was by no means weaker than, let's say, Kasparov's in London.There, if you didn't know that he didn't like playing the Berlin, you could have said the same things: he lacks motivation, he's lost his way, he's not interested, blablabla. Everything let's say Nigel and Garry said, could be used: he's old, he's fed up, he's moved on, whatever. Any of this could have been said about Kasparov in London in 2000 as well. There he lost game 2, he was lost in game 4, I think he was worse in game 6, in game 8 he was not worse out of the opening and in game 10 he lost. I think it's only around game 12 and 14 that he even stabilized with Black. I'm not even mentioning the white games because there was nothing happening. So my point is, when your opponent has neutralized you, it's very difficult to do wonderful things. It is not how badly I played with Boris, but what happens when someone like Vlady actually walks into someone's preparation. I mean, Vlady is an unbelievable player, I mean just a really great player. But when he walked into an ambush in Bonn, in these Meran games, well, it's tough. You tend to make mistakes, you become shaky and all that. So if you keep comparing everything to that... It's not going to happen every time, it happened once and even Topalov learnt something from that. Definitely there were more chances but... I mean we were doing well in the openings there. At least with White, with the Catalan I was scoring lots of points... But with Boris it was very difficult to find a weak spot to aim at.> (http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/v...) |
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| Jun-16-12 | | RookFile: But he might have done what Fischer did against Spassky, and varied his openings, playing stuff that he didn't normally play. That too requires prep. |
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| Jun-16-12 | | AVRO38: The ChessVibes interview is great. Anand is the epitome of class. What a breath of fresh air to have one of the greatest champions ever also be such a decent and classy human being. After years of having to put up with Kasparov, an odious narcissist, and before him Karpov, a Marxist poster boy, the chess world is very lucky to have a man like Anand as its champion. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | KKDEREK: And before Karpov we had that American lunatic, a
champion who didn't have the gonads to play no one..You are right, we are way better now.. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | AVRO38: <And before Karpov we had that American lunatic, a champion who didn't have the gonads to play no one> With Fischer it was either his way or the highway, in this he was consistent throughout his career. To suggest that he suddenly became intransigent after winning the title as a ruse to avoid playing, is at best ignorant, at worst, dishonest. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | Lambda: And the fact that he was willing to play in events many times before he became champion, but only in extraordinary circumstances after he became champion was pure coincidence, I take it? But we do have a rather pleasing summit at present. All of the big four appear to be good people, so far as I can tell. (I don't think you can be too harsh on Karpov. Believing that your state is fundamentally good is the attitude of a normal person, not a bad guy, and he's doing plenty of good now he's actually positively doing politics.) |
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Jun-17-12
 | | OhioChessFan: <AVRO: With Fischer it was either his way or the highway, in this he was consistent throughout his career. To suggest that he suddenly became intransigent after winning the title as a ruse to avoid playing, is at best ignorant, at worst, dishonest.> Amazing then, how often he got things his way before becoming Champion. I guess once he became Champion he just couldn't get things his way. Your claim is at best ignorant, and at worst, delusional. |
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Jun-17-12
 | | Check It Out: Invoking Fischer should carry conversation meltdown alerts. I believe the point was it's nice to have guy who speaks his mind logically without too much ego, no discernible nationalistic agenda, not overly guarded, etc. I particularly like how he called out Kasparov recently. I bet he still recalls those door slamming days of their 90's match and resolved to never let him off the hook again - go Anand! |
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| Jun-17-12 | | NGambit: <I particularly like how he called out Kasparov recently. I bet he still recalls those door slamming days of their 90's match and resolved to never let him off the hook again - go Anand!> That's a welcome change in Anand's approach. It's important that he's learned to hit back because otherwise silence/calmness may be mistaken as weakness. With his legacy secured, he need not take $hit from anybody even if that person is Kasparov. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | AVRO38: <Lambda:And the fact that he was willing to play in events many times before he became champion, but only in extraordinary circumstances after he became champion was pure coincidence, I take it?> <OhioChessFan:Amazing then, how often he got things his way before becoming Champion. I guess once he became Champion he just couldn't get things his way.> Amazing what idiots you both are. Fischer didn't always get his way before becoming champion, that's why he walked out of the 1967 Interzonal tournament while leading, that's why he abandoned the Reshevsky match, that's why he didn't participate in the 1966 championship cycle, that's why he refused to participate in the 1968 Olympiad, etc..So why are you surprised that when he didn't get his way in the match negotiations with FIDE he resigned his title? Fischer was always consistent. His refusal to defend his title on FIDE's terms is what anyone familiar with his career would expect. It should come as no surprise that when FIDE rejected Fischer's terms he simply told them to take a hike. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | blueofnoon: So, how can you explain why Fischer stopped playing altogether once he won the world championship? It's understandable that he had problems with the way FIDE could arrange world championship, but why did he have to stop playing in all kinds of competition? |
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| Jun-17-12 | | AVRO38: <It's understandable that he had problems with the way FIDE could arrange world championship, but why did he have to stop playing in all kinds of competition?> Because he felt that as World Champion he was entitled to larger prize funds than were being offered. He was invited to the famous San Antonio tournament after winning the title but declined on the grounds of the small prize fund. He did attend the tournament as a guest of honor and complemented the organizers on the tournament conditions but he felt, and rightly so in my opinion, that professional chess players, and especially the World Champion, were entitled to more money for their efforts. When he was offered a prize fund of $5 million to play a re-match with Spassky, he agreed to play. You have to remember that before Fischer you couldn't really make a living playing chess, not even at the World Championship level, but after Fischer, and because of Fischer, today's top players make a handsome living playing chess, and we are all, as fans, better off because of it. Imagine if Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian, et al had to get real jobs in order to make ends meet. This is what it used to be like, and what Fischer wanted to change. |
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| Jun-17-12 | | MORPHYEUS: <You have to remember that before Fischer you couldn't really make a living playing chess, not even at the World Championship level, but after Fischer, and because of Fischer, today's top players make a handsome living playing chess, and we are all, as fans, better off because of it. Imagine if Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian, et al had to get real jobs in order to make ends meet. This is what it used to be like, and what Fischer wanted to change.> And so Fischer made chess pay handsomely, and Anand, Carlsen, et all have to thank him? RF gets all the praises for not playing. Yeah, right. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | jussu: <before Fischer you couldn't really make a living playing chess> Bovine feces. Probably the WCh-level players get payed more nowedays than before 1970s, but professional chess is centuries old. None of the World Champions were amateurs. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | jussu: Correction: Botvinnik was sort of an amateur, he spent most of his time as WCh doing science and only switched to chess before matches and more important tournaments. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | RookFile: Euwe is an obvious example of an amateur who became champ. He was not a full-time professional player; he got his PhD in pure mathematics in 1926, and worked as a school and college teacher to make much of his income. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | BishopTakes: In 1988, Soviet grandmaster Efim Geller went to the southern Indian city of Coimbatore to play in a tournament. Geller was a legend and in the twilight of his career of four decades during which he had beaten other greats such as Bobby Fischer. But in Coimbatore, he lost to a little-known 18-year-old boy. When he went back to Moscow Chess Club, his peers teased him asking, “So we hear that you lost to a boy in India?” Geller replied, “Boy? I think I lost to a world champion.” That boy was Viswanathan Anand.
From Forbes: http://business.in.com/article/boar... |
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| Jun-18-12 | | jussu: <RookFile> Right, forgot about him, too. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | RookFile: Amateur does not refer to strength but rather what you make your financial living on. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | AVRO38: <jussu:Bovine feces. Probably the WCh-level players get payed more nowedays than before 1970s, but professional chess is centuries old. None of the World Champions were amateurs.> Nobody is talking about the Soviet players who were supported by the state you moron, Fischer couldn't give a rat's ass about them. He was concerned about the Western players, who were practically ALL amateurs. Reshevsky worked as an accountant and passed up many tournament invitations because he couldn't get away from work. Fine decided to give up chess and focus on his psychology career because he couldn't make a living at chess, this is the guy that finished equal first (2nd on tiebreaks) at AVRO. Euwe was a mathematician and professor who always considered himself an amateur chess player even when he was World Champion, the same is true of Anderssen. Steinitz and Lasker never had any money. The exceptions here are Capablanca, who was also supported by the state and Alekhine who was independently wealthy. In short all of the great non-Soviet players required some other means of support beyond chess. Fischer's point was essentially 'If you want me to play, you have to pay.' |
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| Jun-18-12 | | Petrosianic: <None of the World Champions were amateurs.> Euwe was. |
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Jun-18-12
 | | FSR: <alexmagnus: ... Of #1s, two didn't make it to world champion (Topalov and Carlsen).> Topalov made it to FIDE Champion, and in an impressive manner (decisively winning a DRR tournament). I say that to distinguish him from Khalifman, Ponomariov, and Kasimdzhanov, who I consider joke champions. <most of the mentioned people stem from the time when the champ picked his oponents. Maroczy, Rubinstein, Pillsbury, Reshevsky, Fine never got even a chance to challenge.> Back in those days, a lot depended on whether you had rich backers (e.g. Janowski, having Nardus, got a match while more worthy players did not) and historical accidents (WWI and II). |
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| Jun-18-12 | | BishopTakes: @FSR: alexmagnus was talking about undisputed world champions. I dont feel this FIDE world champion title so attractive even though I highly respect Topalov |
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