Carlsen's Disaster in Norway

I believe Carlsen's recent bad result in Norway is the worst by any reigning WC in history , am I wrong ?  He didnt even have 50% ! I know its his worst result since becoming a GM . 

Reb, one thing I've been wondering is how it will affect future play. Will he be able to bounce back or will this trigger further shaky play? Also, I wonder if his opponents might treat him differently than they have. What are your thoughts?

His opponents probably cheating. Who knows?

With the best computers, I wouldn't be surprised if they caught on to him by now.

I have never seen such a bad performance by Carlsen. This game against Jon Hammer is pretty strange (f6???). It seems he was playing anything considering that the opponent is his opening preparator. But f6 was a silly move! The last time Jon won againt Magnus was in a sub 10 tournament amny years ago.

Yeah, it looks like Carlsen is washed-up.

Whoever wins the next Candidates Tournament will surely have no trouble defeating Carlsen.

How on earth did this loser ever win the World Championship ?

Grandmaster ? Don't make me laugh !

Bring back the orange juice!

It's a slump. Slumps happen. It's probably something psychological going on.

Maybe he is dating someone

Vince Lombardi had rules about this kind of thing lol.

Not sure about tournament result, but some WCs sure had embarrassing chess moments.

Like Kramnik losing to a mate in one he managed to overlook or Anand resigning after 6 moves when he mishandled the Petroff.

Say what you will about who was the best of all time (probably never going to be answered) but such things somehow never seemed to happen to Fischer, Karpov or Kasparov...

You people are hysterical! Did you even follow the tournament? He lost his opening game in a winning position due to a timeout and a misunderstanding over the time controls. He had a winning position against that little wussbag Giri and did not see the win.  He had to go for a win with the black pieces against Anand due to his poor start and lost, no shame there and that great American import Naka played for a draw from the very beginning by employing the Lasker defence against which Carlsen could find nothing.  Against Hammer he played the very dubious 4...f6 and got punished.  Thus if one looks one can find reasons for all of his disappointing results which makes way more sense than engaging in tabloid journalism and hysterics.

Look at the insipid Anand Topalov draw - playing for a draw and the money which of course makes for economic sense but produces very tedious chess to watch.

I don't think anyone's really being hysterical here. Sure, it's a surprisingly bad performance. But I think most people here are clever enough to realise that surprising results do happen - in fact, if there were never any individual tournament surprises, THAT would be the most surprising.

He is pretty young, got off to a bad start, it might make sense to wait and see how his next tournament goes. Robbie is right on the money.

haha, cripes frenno! you're a scream!

It can sometimes be difficult as well playing in your home country, look how badly Anand faired in Chennai?  This must be an added pressure.  The Norwegian tabloids were very scathing.

Great players don't turn bad overnight. He'll be back.

Nah.  Idiots are more like blades of grass.  They're everywhere.

Carlsen having a bad tournament?  Sure, that's like the blue moon.

It'd be interesting comparing Magnus to Garry. What's Garry's worst result between 1985 and 2000? He also jumped 26 points down between Oct 2000 & Jan 2001.

I apologise, you are correct, too many beers.