Carlsen's Disaster in Norway

"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?"

I think so, there is some sort of hysteria spreading about how bad it is with draws and that they somehow must he stopped. Having the players blitz out the endgames might increase the blunders and make it more "exciting".

"I believe Carlsen's recent bad result in Norway is the worst by any reigning WC in history, am I wrong ?"

Which is the worst result by a reigning World Champion will depend on how you count. Carlsen scored -2, with a 2693 performance. When Kramnik finished last in Sofia 2005 he had a 2675 performance and scored -2, while he had a 2658 performance in the Russian Championship the same year, even if the field was much weaker and he had an even score. Anand's -2 as last in Bilbao 2008 was a 2693 performance just like Carlsen's here.

What about Kasparov, fabelhaft?

"What about Kasparov, fabelhaft?"

He had a just below 2660 performance with an even score in Horgen 1995, but that was just after the title match against Anand, and 20 years ago 2660 was a bit better than today:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79994

We've seen another great athlete lose his touch and suffer a dramatic performance decline but it is way too soon to know if Magnus is undergoing a similar fate. We should ask Tiger Woods opinion. 

We lost a great player: Walter Browne. If anyone had more passion for chess than Walter and if anyone had more raw talent for chess than Bobby, his name would have to be Magnus Carlsen.

Magnus wasnt that bad. If you look at the play, he should have won one more match (Topalov), and that would have given him a 50% score. 50% is fantastic against players at this enormous strenght.

He did not perform at his best when feeling bad, which means that easiest way to beat Magnus is to win the first couple of games in an annoying way.

Jon Ludvig did beat him with very good play, pushing Magnus to put his pieces in passive spots. Magnus did three inaccuracies in the game that I know about, move 4, move 5, and move 27. It doesnt help if you are worldchampion if you do three inaccuracies against Hammer. Hammer is fantastic, much better than this tournamentresult shows, but he needed some games to get comfortable playing at this skyhigh level.

Honestly, he was bad or at least worse than minimum expected. Looking at the average, he played weaker opponents than MVL did for example. Or Grischuk with the same score. Magnus WAS 'bad' in Norway Chess 2015.

First it was Dominguez, now both Tania Sachdev and Humpy Koneru follow the Champ :-) Koneru even withdrew from the tournament after losing because she didn't know the time control.

From Chessbase:

As Sabrina Chevannes reports, Humpy Koneru "wrote a letter to the appeals committee, not to have the result of the game reversed, but she simply wanted the organisation to recognise that this loss was due to the fault of the arbiter and that they should recognise this. Being on the appeals committee, I was involved in the discussion of this sad situation, but unfortunately, according the FIDE rules, it is always up to the player to know the rules of the tournament. This means, regardless of what announcements the arbiter makes, the players should still read the written regulations of the event. This is quite a shocking occurrence as it means that the arbiter can make whatever mistake he/she likes, but at the end of the day, it is the player who will always suffer. Since there was no breach of any rules, the appeal had no ground and there was nothing Humpy could do about the situation.

Therefore, GM Koneru felt that she could no longer play in the event due to the bad organisation of the tournament. She does not feel it is acceptable that the arbiter can make an announcement as such and suffers the consequences, but nothing happens to the arbiter.

Many will look upon Humpy’s withdrawal from the event very negatively, but she wants to know that she does not agree with the way things are being organised, or with the way the situation was handled. She said: 'I want everyone to know I quit the tournament in protest of the wrong announcement (poor communication skills of the arbiter), irresponsible organisation due to which I lost. I am writing this to get clarity for the betterment of chessplayers, so that in future no player should suffer because of arbiters fault.'

She cannot believe that what the arbiter says has no value and that nowhere in the FIDE rules does it have anything to do with situations like this. In light of this she said: 'If it is so, I request the chess fraternity to confirm this, so that in future we players can keep deaf ear for their announcements and follow only regulations.'"

It should be noted that the rules and regulations are available in the tournament hall or may be crosschecked by referring to the arbiter. The onus is clearly on the player for not being aware of the rules. Humpy Koneru's appeal was turned down and she withdrew from the tournament.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/2015-commonwealth-gupta-leads-humpy-protests

"No man is a prophet in his own country."

Magnus and MVL made a draw. Their strenght was ca equal that day. At his best Magnus is better, but when he feels bad, he is like an average Norway Chess player, performing at ca 2750-2800.

They are balancing on an edge. They can be slightly better in 38 moves, and do a questionable move seconds before the timecontrol. The margins are almost thinner than nothing.

Vishy and Topalov had a good feeling in the tournament. They were very good. Vishy had a bad feeling in Chennai and was less good back then.

Magnus was worse than our minimum excpectation. Thats true, but even at his bad week he was able to pick some points from genious supergrandmasters.

Maybe we excpect to much from him. We dont understand how incredible strong it is to play draw against Nakamura, Giri and MVL, to win against Grishuk and Aronian. To outplay Topalov. That was six performances of tremendous strenght.

When feeling bad (yes he is a bad looser, that is his weakness and also a strenght), Anand, Caruana and Hammer defeated him. Anand , Caruana and Hammer is very, very strong players, and their best ideas is absolutely world class. Anand is one of the best players of all time, Caruana is one of the greatest talents of all time, anf he showed it to the world in Sinquefield. Hammer is fantastic, but not familiar with superGm tournaments, so it took him 8 games  to get calm and find his power, but when he found it, he really did perform great. Before the qualification to Norway chess Hammer had played ca 50 games against strong players without a single loss. That man will reach 2720  soon.

Made my day :)

Love the video! 

Lust can make people change drastically. Two of the stongest is lust for money & the other is love.

Reb написал:

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 . 

WC?!

It means World Champion??

He is also a person he should have rest!

This may be right but that's no reason to write off Carlsen as some of the other posters are doing here. At this tournament level the differnce between a good result and a mediocre or poor one can be a matter of two or three lapses in concentration. That being said, he is not as dominant as Kasparov was and he has some stiff opposition moving up on him, so he'll have to work very hard to keep his current position for any length of time.

"he is not as dominant as Kasparov was and he has some stiff opposition moving up on him, so he'll have to work very hard to keep his current position for any length of time"

He did have 17 tournaments in a row with top 2 finishes, and had won all his previous events this year. This was his fourth top tournament in five months, and for example Kasparov usually had a few months between his events. Maybe Carlsen should rest a bit more between tournaments but there's not much to complain about with regards to results the last five-six years. Apart from this tournament, that is.

Was Kasparov more dominant than Carlsen at the age of 24? I guess he was when he was 30, but Magnus has some years to mature before he is 30. I also guess we have more top-players these days.

Kasparov entered the absolute top at the age of 22, defeating Karpov, but if I remember right , the difference between their strenght wasnt very much.

"Was Kasparov more dominant than Carlsen at the age of 24?"

Depends on how you count. At 24 Kasparov played one tournament, where he shared first with Ljubojevic, and drew a title match. If Carlsen would score such results one year people would say that he definitely was past it :-)

When he turned 24 Kasparov had a 25-point lead on the rating list, Carlsen has had around 70 points lately but is now down to "only" 37 points.