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Aug-08-14
 | | perfidious: <JoinTheArmy: Doesn't matter if white had the advantage out of the opening. Caruana was unfamiliar this type of position and it showed as he chose the wrong plan around move 31.> Still think it was in the opening phase of the game as late as move thirty? If you even bothered reading my kibitz before reproducing it, you would hardly have wasted time on your post. 'Course, some people need to maunder on for no reason whatever. |
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| Aug-08-14 | | Sokrates: I consider this game a classic win by black. In order to gain space and push black's pieces to the back ranks, he advances his pawn phalanx too far, thus making it vulnerable and prone to be dissolved. It requieres very patient and meticulous play by black, but then it's inevitable. Carlsen's great play brings memories of the old endgame masters to my mind. Smyslov, in particular, would love to see Carlsen's slow manoeverings. This may be an important win for Carlsen in his ongoing rivalry with Caruana. When he was defeated by the latter in the Berlin, he may have sworn that he would punish Caruana next time he tried to overrun Carlsen with his pawns. And so he did. I don't think, though, that Fabiano will feel too crushed by this. He has a remarkable psychological strength and he will come back at the champ. |
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| Aug-08-14 | | Nicocobas: <perfidious> Does Pope Francis still call you at night to ask for your advice in Latin? |
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| Aug-08-14 | | jphamlore: I think this game can only be fully understood considering how each player used their time. Carlsen had the advantage from the start as far as time goes and was able to use it at a few crucial moves. Meanwhile Caruana entered move 30 to 40 with no much time left, certainly not enough to make it that difficult for the likes of Carlsen. This is where I compare Carlsen to being more a modern Emanuel Lasker as far as a completely scientific approach to actually playing the games in important events. Carlsen has had the very best training money could buy with a year with Kasparov and now with Nielsen as his trainer. I have no doubt that Kasparov passed along all of his teacher Botvinnik's exercises for forcing a player to properly use time, and in addition, Kasparov would have been able to caution Carlsen with examples gleaned from say the play of Capablanca about whom I believe Kasparov has written his one flaw was sometimes not fully calculating. |
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| Aug-08-14 | | greed and death: Carlson must've got his hands on this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/08... |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Karposian: Even though (as <perfidious> points out) Caruana maintained an advantage well into the endgame, I must say I find some of his opening play quite strange. 8.Ne2 is hardly justified, I do not think this will catch on very soon! The way he handled the Queen exchange is also rather questionable. What I mean is that 11.Qg3 is justified if White really wants to avoid exchanging Queens. But since Caruana responded to 11...Qc4 with 12.Qb3 he allowed it anyway! (12.c3 would have kept the Queens on for the time being) This made 11.Qg3 seem rather pointless. I think for example 11.Bd2 Qxf3 12.Bxf3 would have been better for White than exchanging Queens with 12...Qxb3 13.axb3. Getting the Queens off the board and compromising your pawn structure at the same time doesn't seem to be a good idea against Magnus! |
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| Aug-09-14 | | jphamlore: Looking at the clock times, didn't Caruana basically spend all of his final 15 minutes on 31. b4 leaving him with little more than the increment for the final 9 moves before the time control? Meanwhile Carlsen had judiciously used much of his time advantage on 27. .. f6 and 28. .. fxe5, but he still had about 2 minutes per move the final 10 moves, which he didn't need to use. By the time the smoke had cleared Carlsen already had his connected passed pawns in the center. I think the debate over the nature of Carlsen's games is eerily similar to that over Emanuel Lasker's games where the uninformed might think Lasker got lucky to escape from apparently inferior positions. But one must remember that Lasker was up to that time perhaps the most practical player ever as far as actually playing a live game with time controls. Lasker knew how to at the right moment turn up the pressure on an opponent in a position the opponent would not have either the ability or the time to properly evaluate. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | denilsson: <csmath: The consequence in the opening was queen exchange and bad pawns further on. I do not see anything in the game that indicates this preparation (?) led to any gain for white.>
Caruanas openings play was allright. There were many possible ways to play this position (because it was a slightly passive opening from black).
Anyway- how should he have expected this opening choice by Carlsen? |
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| Aug-09-14 | | jphamlore: <denilsson: Anyway- how should he have expected this opening choice by Carlsen?> Because Carlsen played this opening a mere days before as White Carlsen vs N Djukic, 2014
and the Caro-Kann as Black game 2 his World Championship Match with Anand? Anand vs Carlsen, 2013
Carlsen is all about understanding positions by playing games, so it is quite possible he could play the same thing either White or Black. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | jphamlore: The notion that Carlsen is in any way constrained to only play Berlins versus 1. e4 is total nonsense. If he were banned from playing the Berlin he would do equally well playing closed Ruy Lopezes. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | denilsson: <jphamlore> How many time had Caruana to prepare for that game? Do you really think he should have prepared the Scandinavian opening? Carlsen could have chosen the Dragon, or the French opening for example |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Cooleyhigh: I always play the Scandinavian with black moving the Queen back to Qd8 without good results but in Carlsen's hands it is a masterpiece and with the Portuguese variation at that with Bg4. I am glad there is hope for the Scandinavian opening with black pieces. |
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Aug-09-14
| | perfidious: <Nicocobas: <perfidious> Does Pope Francis still call you at night to ask for your advice in Latin?> Come again? |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Fiona Macleod: It was nice to watch a Scandinavian play the Scandinavian in Scandinavia. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Howard: The Scandinavian has always had a medicore reputation, but many top-level players have argued it's actually a perfectly playable opening. You think Carlsen's success with it here will make this "inferior" opening more popular ? Or will people just shrug their shoulders and say that Carlsen "can play any opening he wants and still win." |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Chessman1504: Carlsen does seem to be a strange mixture stylistically. According to Anand, he's comfortable in any position. This is sort of like Lasker or Fischer. Others have compared him to Karpov. The variety of positions he can and does play make his chess very fun to watch, even if I don't comprehend much of it :) |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Ulhumbrus: After Carlsen played the centre counter defence and then conceded the bishop pair Caruana played as if he overrated his side of the position and was not objective, just as Kramnik overrated his side of the position and was not objective in the game Topalov vs Kramnik, 2014 Perhaps Caruana needed steadier nerves so as to to be content to play for less ie to be content to not play for too much too hastily. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Nicocobas: <perfidious> You can be arrogant sometimes, but in a nice way :) |
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Aug-09-14
 | | Domdaniel: <Chessman 1504> - < Carlsen does seem to be a strange mixture stylistically. >
Kasparov recently said that Carlsen combined Karpov's precision and Fischer's will to win.
Of course, this is typically self-serving stuff by Kasparov, though it has more than a grain of truth. The 'missing' element is Kasparov's opening prep, dynamism, and calculating power. He praises Carlsen by comparing him to two great players, but omits any comparison to another great -- Kasparov himself. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | visayanbraindoctor: <Chessman1504: Carlsen does seem to be a strange mixture stylistically.> I disagree. Carlsen has a clear consistent style which I find quite comprehensible. I have posted on this in my game collection on Carlsen. What Carlsen is not:
Regarding Kasparov's not mentioning any similarity between his style and Carlsen's, GKK on this point is quite right (even if I disagree on a lot of things GKK has claimed or done in his career). One can take a look at Carlsen's and GKK's notable games. It's useless claiming Carlsen to be something he is not. He is not a brilliant tactical attacker in the line of Alekhine and Kasparov, who in each tournament never seem to be able to avoid not creating tactical attacking masterpieces (although like all strong masters, Carlsen is quite capable of conducting a perfectly smashing attack if the position is right for it). What Carlsen is:
This game is almost an archetype of the Carlsen style. The crocodile in the swamp. Carlsen plays a safe opening and goes into a relatively solid middlegame devoid of bizarre complications and wild tactical shots. He maintains a sound pawn structure. Behind this sound pawn structure, he makes sure that his pieces remain coordinated and active, and don't get in each other's way. In this endeavor, Carlsen is quite comfortable in moving his pieces into his 1st and 2nd ranks, something that I rarely see other masters doing regularly (for instance the Nh7 maneuver). Then he begins grabbing squares, holes, files, diagonals. He grabs the g5 square. The d5 square. He battles for the f and a files. There does not seem to be a clear attack or threat to Caruana's King or position; but the effects accumulate, and Carlsen's position grows better and better. Caruana finds his position getting swamped. And the crocodile begins to rise. Eventually Caruana gets lost in the maneuverings, creates more weaknesses for himself, and Carlsen drags him down the muddy water to eat him. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | SirRuthless: <visayanbraindoctor> That is totally right. I think the key with Carlsen is great prep and preserving sound pawn structures. He feasts on uncoordinated pieces and broken pawn structures. He has a great ability to circulate a position like a rubik's cube until he gets the configuration he wants and then BAM starts turning the screws. You are toast. I think an even more apt description of his than crocodile is boa constrictor. In contrast Aronian's style is like a gang of thieves breaking into multiple windows of your home simultaneously at some ungodly hour of the night and looting you before you know what's going on when it happens. You can see what they are doing but you aren't prepared and are too shocked to respond. |
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| Aug-09-14 | | bobthebob: <He has a great ability to circulate a position like a rubik's cube until he gets the configuration he wants > that is absolutely the best description I have ever heard. Bravo! |
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| Aug-09-14 | | Chessman1504: I appreciate the comment visayanbraindoctor! You always seem to have something interesting to say, something that adds to my perspective in a nontrivial way. I only mean strange in the sense that Carlsen every now and again enters some ultra-sharp positions and plays them well, but I guess he's a super-GM: of course he can play any position well! I also think it's strange that there is no discernible pattern in his losses, especially for 2014, suggesting his relative universality and lack of significant weaknesses. Really, thanks for entering the discussion! Same for you SirRuthless. I might have underrated this win by Carlsen prematurely. After all, one does not simply beat Caruana from a relatively simple position, simple in that there are no wild complications; the play centers around who can evaluate better as opposed to calculating extremely deep lines. |
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| Aug-10-14 | | mkrk17: i would say carlsen is more like karpov and capablanca combined with fisher's will to win. He is definitely not a kasparov - whose style is more of complications, attacks, etc. |
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| Aug-10-14 | | Ulhumbrus: <visayanbraindoctor: Carlsen ... begins grabbing squares, holes, files, diagonals. He grabs the g5 square. The d5 square. He battles for the f and a files...
>
Bravo! This observation does make it easier to understand Carlsen's play. Spassky said something like this about Petrosian.
Perhaps one can add two things.
Firstly, Carlsen will recognize all these acquired positional assets for what they are ( for that is what they are) better than most and understand their value and how to make use of them better than most. Secondly, Carlsen - as did Fischer- will gain repeatedly the better of the bargain each time he acquires such assets and his opponents fail to do so. That is how his advantage grows with each move. This is of course one of the ways in which a stronger player wins against a weaker player at a lower level as well. |
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