Baden-Baden 2015

Starting February 2nd, with Carlsen, Caruana, Anand, Aronian, Adams, Bacrot, Naiditsch and Baramidze. With only seven rounds it will be quite advantageous to have an extra white, and much might depend on getting wins against Baramidze, Naiditsch and Bacrot.

Will Anand win another tournament after Candidates, Bilbao and London last year? Will Aronian continue dropping further down the rating list? Will Caruana lose a point and make Grischuk #2?

Carlsen's head to head against the opponents:

vs Aronian 11-4 (no loss since Linares 2009, won ten of the last eleven decisive)

vs Anand 9-7 (8-1 after London 2010)

vs Adams 7-1

vs Caruana 6-4

vs Naiditsch 3-1

vs Bacrot 3-0

vs Baramidze no games

http://www.grenkechessclassic.de/en/

Aronian and Caruana have five days between Baden-Baden and their next tournament, Zurich. Tough schedule for the two, who have been out of shape lately and finished thirteen rounds in Wijk a couple of days ago. Caruana dropped more than 40 points in three and a half months, while Aronian lost around 60 points in less than a year.

My prediction of the final standings:

1. Carlsen

2. Anand

3. Caruana

4. Adams

5. Naiditsch

6. Aronian

7. Bacrot

8. Baramidze

Post predictions HERE, too! 

Anand had a great 2014 but his last tournament victories are difficult to assess. He won Bilbao, but the only player he faced that wasn't more than 150 Elo below Carlsen was Aronian, and he lost against him. Then he won London, but that after all dry draws before the last round, where Adams blundered away the game and lost. Given that half the field shared first it was a very even tournament, but winning tournaments is never easy so well done by Anand on both occasions. If he could win a fourth tournament in a row it would be very impressive.

Carlsen is doing fairly well with white against Adams:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=black&pid=10900&player=&pid2=52948&player2=&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=

Carlsen played another great positional game, and another impressive endgame (of course...). The game between Fabiano and Bacrot was/is very interesting, while Anand's failed to find a winning plan against the underrated Naiditsch. Aronian is a pale shadow of his former self. He tried to win today from an equal position, but almost got in serious trouble.

Carlsen's loss blows the tournament open. Maybe he wanted to punish Naiditsch by disrespecting him with such a dubious sacrifice, we'll never know.

He beat Carlsen twice in a row?

jep, first time he beat him during the chess olympiad last august.

I was at the tournament yesterday. pretty cool having the players so close. they have to go through the audience every time they leave the room and you could meet them outside. It was also commentated by two GM's (and exerienced commentators) and every visitor got earphones. really cool tournament.

"Naiditsch now in the exclusive club of players who have a positive score against Carlsen in tournament chess"

Carlsen still has a plus score against Naiditsch.

Is chess.com covering this event? Is there any livestream?

Painful to see Anand surrendering to Carlsen after a long game. He must surely hate Naiditsch, and wonder why doesn't Carlsen play like that against him...

After this game, it's even clearer that Anand will beat Carlsen in 2016.

Classical games: Magnus Carlsen beat Arkadij Naiditsch 3 to 2, with 7 draws.
Including rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Arkadij Naiditsch 7 to 2, with 7 draws.
Only rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Arkadij Naiditsch 4 to 0.
    *The figures above are based only on games present in our database which may be incomplete.

Naiditsch must be one of the most arrogant grandmasters I've ever seen. Cheap comments after a loss are pathetic, but cheap comments after a win? No style.

Apart the fact that Carlsen managed to equalize (he lost the game later) a bishop down, you're mixing apples and oranges. There is no need to make idiotic comments because you won a game against Carlsen. I didn't hear Saric, or Wojtaszek say "I got lucky once, he is almost always lucky", "I'm no one punching bag" (?! why, because Carlsen can play a bishop sac on move 10 and still hold it until deep in the endgame? Wow!) ...

Pathetic, if you ask me. And people say Magnus is arrogant! LOL

Arrogance in this case, can translate into self confidence, which can work wonders.

Carlsen has been quite criticised in this tournament, but he had black in three of the first four rounds, so result wise it isn't too bad. He took lots of risks with black and it paid off this round while it didn't in the previous round, but the games have sure been entertaining.