Carlsen's Disaster in Norway

Well, he's a human being, like everyone else.  Seems like either he wasn't well motivated or must have been preoccupied with something.  That incident in game 1 obviously didn't help.

It's tough when you're the one everyone wants to beat, and the only way is down!

He will crash his opponents again in the first occasion. By the way, that game against Hammer looked like he gave his good friend a victory.

At 19 Fischer was a comet streaking towards the World Championship until he hit Curacao 1962, where he finished fourth of eight, only 1 point in the black.

Fischer said the Soviets were cheating with arranged draws.

Insiders said Larry Evans arranged to get Bobby laid and it threw off his concentration.

Ten years later Fischer was World Champion.

I think he will jump back eventually.

Carlsen is without a doubt one of the best chess player in history and he certainly will bounce back. And he will not lose the WC in the next 10 years.

Carlsen's performance in this tournament is one of the worst in history as a current world champion.

The problem,it seems to me,is that at the top level players are insanely strong and if they sense weakness,they can be like hyenas.At any rate, the difference in strength between top players is minuscule so it doesn't take a lot of drop in your performance for the others to sense it and start crushing you.Remember Radjabov?He used to be number 4 in the world with a 2793 rating.Personally,I like Carlsen and wish him to get back on his feet as soon as possible.But I can't say I am not worried about him, having seen the example of Radjabov and,to a much lesser degree admittedly,of Aronian.

I googled Kasparov's worst tournament as champ: he lost one game... ONE! He finished in the middle of the pack. They say as champ a Kasparov loss was very rare. But he almost never lost two in a row.

I couldn't find Karpov's worst tourney, but I really wanted to because I think he's a better comparison.

I don't read into this tourney to much. But those who say it looks bad are right. Those who dicredit what he's done are jackasses

MSC157 wrote:

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.

That move Ba2 in the Hammer game was one of the worst moves I've ever seen a WC make....period. He was completely lost.

@abumakaar

what is your profile pic? it intrigues me...

I think he will bounce back and that this result was just a freak occurance . I wouldnt be surprised to see him win convincingly his next several tournies . 

Don't really know but it seems like he was playing distracted most of the event . ( have no idea by what/who ? ) 

I am almost certain that among Kasporav's worst "tournament" performances was his match vs. deep blue. I think the two incidents may even be similar. Kasporav loses against deep blue in round 2 and never gets hits footing back, maybing the same thing happened to Carlsen in round 1.

Umm, hello? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxbMzZ5a2Zg Skip to 5:00 in the video. And also, he blundered a mate in 2 against Kiril Georgev in blitz, and instead stalemated him: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258478.

The bottom line is that even Kasparov makes obvious blunders (I know both games were blitz, but come on, he's still Kasparov).

In any case, the person to whom you responded was not talking about 1-move durr moments from top GMs, but instead he was talking about bad performance in general, and 3.5/9 for Carlsen is abysmal and unheard of, especially in his own Country, no doubt about it.

  I think what we've learned here is, never bet on Carlsen in a Norway tournament.    

Kramnik finished winless last in Sofia 2005 and Anand did the same in Bilbao 2008. But the big difference compared to Carlsen was that they rarely won any events as World Champions and played much less.

He had two wins and four losses in that tournament.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=45580&pid=12295

"He had two wins and four losses in that tournament"

That's true, it was a later Tal Memorial he also was last in but winless that time.

Carlsen will bounce back from this tournament.

While I still believe he is the best player in the world, and the favorite in every tournament he enters, I think the gap is shrinking, especially with the rise of a new generation that isn't afraid of him.

1960s-1970s generation: Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Anand, Adams, Shirov, Svidler, Kamsky, Topalov, Kramnik, Polgar, Morozevich, Kasimdzhanov, Leko.

I fear 2011-2013 was Gelfand's swansong. Kramnik is slowly fading. Only Anand and Topalov are still kicking; the rest are no longer top players.

1980s generation: Dominguez, Aronian, Vallejo, Bacrot, Jakovenko, Ponomariov, Grischuk, Navara, Mamedyarov, Gashimov (RIP), Radjabov, Tomashevsky, Nakamura.

Aronian's results have been troubling for awhile. Radjabov seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Dominguez, Jakovenko, and Tomashevsky are still around, but not really World Championship-caliber. That leaves only Grischuk and Nakamura (and maybe Mamedyarov if you wish) -- which is quite astonishing if you ask me, as all these guys are 35 or younger.

1990s generation: Karjakin, Vachier-Lagrave, Andreikin, Nepomniatchtchi, Wang Hao, Caruana, Ding Liren, So, Giri...others.

Already some attrition is happening here: Karjakin and Nepo appear to be spinning their wheels, Andreikin doesn't look like a real top player, Wang Hao could be further along (and does relatively well against Carlsen) but there are rumors he has health issues. I think MVL's decision to attend university ruined his chances to become one of the greats. That leaves Caruana, Ding Liren, So, and Giri...and of course Yu Yangyi and Wei Yi, which is where the challenge might REALLY come from.

In total, we have about ten players (and growing) who might pose problems for Carlsen. THAT should be the concern of Carlsen fans. Again, he's still the best, and still the favorite, but at some point the large numbers of rivals catch up to you...

I am not sure of the rationale governing the crazy time control, perhaps it was done to make the game appear more exciting or to avoid draws by getting a decisive result?  If this was the case it failed miserably. Carlsens 95 move draw against Nakamura was one of the most tedious chess games I think I have observed.  Now I understand that the world champion likes to play on in equal or close to equal positions especially if there is little risk in the hope that his opponent may err, but I would rather watch two patzers play blitz chess than be made to sit through that ordeal again. I don't know if chess organisers can solve the problem but its an issue that certainly needs to be looked at.  Classical chess is the standard for sure but solutions need to be found.