is Carlsen too strong for Candidates

 One of the problems that Carlsen might face in this event is that he is too strong. Players know that they need victories to have a chance to be in the final. But it is very likely that they decide that they should try to risk against anyone except Magnus, because complications will probably favour him. So they might play hyper safe lines vs him and that could complicate things for Carlsen in order to score enough points.

i didn't write this http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80233&crosstable=1

but who ever did brought up a good point

Not really. It's rather hard to play not to lose and be effective. Draws which are the result of a hard fought battle to obtain an advantage are easier to come by than draws that are the result of an attempt to not gain or lose any advantage. Regardless of the relative strength between opponents. 

or carlsen might be the only one they're going to take their chances - should the moment come where that is the decision they'll have to make :P

if the competition is too weak, i think he should leave this planet really. This was supposed to the one of the strongest fields ever.

You can't draw a game against a super-GM by playing "safe" moves. You have to play GOOD moves.

maybe you all should realize the absence of the spoon :D

Rather doubt the other 7 have merely turned out to make up the numbers against him?

They are all playing to win of course.

well i think people are in for a big suprise. I dont think Carlsen will win. Im pretty sure, no matter how strong he is

well maybe im wrong but i believe GM´s know some drawing lines you just can´t escape

I defy anyone to discern a difference in quality between Aronian-Carlsen today, and Anand-Gelfand match game #1 below.

The hype surrounding Carlsen is deserved in that he's an absolutely amazing player. But he's really not that far above his competitors. One of his greatest strengths is stamina. He will start to distance himself from the others later in the tournament.

i believe most likely Ivanchuk or Grischuk will win the candidates.

Ivanchuk doesn't have a prayer, and I don't believe Grischuk is strong enough to go +3, which is what will be required to win. 

For me, the favorites are Carlsen, Kramnik, and Aronian.

My dark horse candidate is Peter Svidler. He's really taking this seriously, has lost weight, and is playing well.

I just think this time Ivanchuk or Grischuk will win.

Time will tell. But the way Boris was allowing himself to be under so much time pressure was shocking to me! When will the first game be lost due to time?

I think Carlsen will win the canditates and will wipe old Vishy from the board afterwards. Aronian and Radjabov are going to be his major opponents for the next years.

Does anybody know what were the criterias for the starting field ?

Where are top players like Karjakin,Topalov, Nakamura, Mamedyarov, Caruana, .... ?

Thanks Tom !

What a crazy set-up - why not simply take the top ten of the actual FIDE list?

Which actual FIDE list? From which time period?

Also, presuming the best players are the ones with the highest rating at a given point isn't accurate either. A player who has a really great tournament could sit on his laurels if FIDE used only one rating period. Instead, it uses a composite of rating periods.

It turns out that having the losing candidate from the last cycle, regardless of rating, is completely fair.

Also, there should be a way to allow people to play into the candidates event. That shows that you can't just sit on your rating. And the wild card can be used to repay a political debt (not purely chessic reason), or it could be used to allow someone such as Kasparov, if he stepped out of retirement, to be seeded into the tournament.

All in all, the method of choosing who plays in the Candidates' tournament is fairly uncontroversial. The real problem, as hinted at by Kramnik today, is that a round robin tournament doesn't really determine who will perform best in a world championship match. The requirements for each are different.

When did being 60+ points higher than the competition and having such a dominant year as Carlsen has had in the last 12 months come to be redefined as "really not that far above"? He seems further above his contemporaries than any chess player has been since the Kasparov days.