http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/crosswords/chess/chess-anand-and-gelfand-to-compete-for-title.html?_r=1&ref=crosswords

Are you just finding this out, or are you advertising for the NYTimes?

Its a good article.  Once a week, thought it was worth sharing.

This is more info than non-players need, but (much) less than what chess players who have been following this for a few months already know.

Also, half the article talked about Kramnik and Aronian (?)

I just wonder what "unnamed official" from the State Dept., gave the NYTimes this information.

Fischer hadn't played any tournaments for three years, so by 1975, I think he seriously could have lost against Karpov. 

                                            Anybody

seconded

What the article doesn't address is Anand's preparation for the World Championship Match with Gelfand.

He is not going to give away any opening preparation secrets or novelties that took him and his team of seconds together with computer analysis almost a year to put together in some tournament games against some not well known GM among thousands just to win a game.  There is $2.5 million dollars riding on this match.

If I were Gelfand I would choose to read betwen the lines and closely examine all of those games that Anand has lost lately, especially as Black. 

@joeydvivre: At the level of being the two best players in the world, a three year layoff could just be the thing that would have made Karpov the better of the two in that match. 

In the end, it is reasonable to put a big question mark on the outcome of that match that never was played, instead of assuming Fischer would have won without doubt.

Okay

I wonder if Euwe ever was the strongest player in the world but he is  very underestimated. Chessmetrics rank him as #1 most of 1936-37 because of his great results around these years, and Fine wrote that Euwe had no superiors in this period.

Still I don't think he was stronger than Alekhine and Capa, the 1935 match was just one of those things that can happen when two strong players meet and the slightly stronger of them is in worse form. But Chessmetrics may well be right that Euwe was a top three player both in 1935 and 1937, and in that respect he is different level than Gelfand.

Kramnik vs Leko in 2004 is another candidate for "not strongest player in the world"-title match. Most people probably saw Kasparov and Anand as the two strongest players at the time, at least they finished top two in the vote for best player of the year. 

Before Kamsky's break he was strong enough to beat Kramnik and Anand in Candidates matches and be ahead of both on the rating list, and after the break he has never been anywhere close to their level, and was outside top 30 much of 2009-10. Impressive that he isn't that far from a top ten position nowadays, but it's difficult to make a long break and come back at the highest level.

IIRC the opinion of Kasparov is that Fischer would have been the favourite had the match taken place but the next and subsiquent matches would have favoured Karpov.

Still being the favourite doesn't equal winning. In any case Kasparov's statement about title matches referred to in New York Times can't be wrong only because of Karpov's winning the title by default. The match would probably have been between the two strongest players if Fischer had played, so it's first in 1978 the title match maybe wasn't between the top two, but then Fischer hadn't played for five years.

Maybe they were, Euwe had some strong years though and results that were enough for Chessmetrics to rank him as a constant top eight all of the fifteen year period 1928-43, and considerably higher at his peak. Maybe comparable to Kramnik the last fifteen years world ranking wise.

Chessmetrics is a joke.  Look at the ratings they estimate for all the also-ran masters of earlier times.  Hyper-inflated, and ridiculous.

In fact there have been any number of matches NOT between the world's top players.  Alekhine played Bogoljubov twice when Capa was clearly the main challenger.  Rubenstein and Keres were both at least second in the world for part of their careers, but neither got a match.  Fischer withdrew from the 1969 cycle, the top two players at the time were him and Spassky, so the title match would have been missing one of them.  Also in 1975, Fischer was clearly better than Korchnoi.

Arguments about Fischer are baloney, though.  He CHOSE not to play.  No one screwed him out of the title.  The guy was nuts. 

The guy who runs away cannot be said to be strongest.  Sorry, that's just no sale.

So true. I remember when I was young, a few weeks ago, and we had a lot of people at the house. Some guy said he was the "ultimate" chess player, and challenged me to a game. Now, if I was actually the World Chess Champion at this get-together, I would have to play him. Which I did. But, if I were to just say that I was the World Chess Champion of this House, and not play him, then the laid-back atmosphere would have been interrupted by negative tension. Of course, the people who like to brag on my behalf would have been left in a quite uncomfortable position, as are the Fischer-lovers

One could argue that a bad childhood and a lack of sanity screwed him out of the title. Fischer was not all right in the head.

Join the bloody club, Fischer!