KASPAROV VS CARLSEN WHO CAN DESTROY THE OTHER ??

"Estragon, I don't know if you remember the match between Anand and Topalov. The games were absolutely fantastic, but apart from an opening blunder in game one and an incomprehenisble mistake in a drawn opposite colored Bishop endgame"

To be fair, a top player shouldn't need to rely on people using the phrase "apart from" a whole lot. Besides, you could use the apart from idea to justify Topalov too. Topalov did great, apart from the games he lost.  Ultimately, neither guy played perfectly -- the deciding factor was of course the final score, which was narrowly in Anand's favor.

"If I beat you in a 12 game match it probably does mean I am better than you ."

By this logic, anyone Carlsen has a minus score against, he is worse than. The problem is, if that player he is "worse than" has a minus score against some random 2600, even if he has a plus score against 95% of them, is that player now worse than that 2600? And maybe that 2600 can beat almost all 2400s but just has one 2400 that has a style that conflicts him and thus the 2600 has a minus score against that particular 2400 -- now the 2600 is worse than that 2400. The transitive property would seemingly tell us that Carlsen is worse than a 2400 player -- if we kept going he might end up weaker than a class player.

Exaggerations aside, the point is it's entirely plausible that even the best players have a counter (as does everyone! Even the "GM killers" (e.g., a strong amateur who beats lots of titled players in internet blitz) probably struggle against some weaker player ) -- surely there are some players Kasparov did worse against than others -- but overall his style/play proved to be the most consistently good one in his time -- tested by playing many different types of players. 

I view match play results as another piece of data -- a valid one, but not a totally definitive one, unless we can somehow confirm that it is done in a purely scientific manner.

No, the other way around doesn't work so well. The drawn games almost all favored Anand over Topalov. The match wasn't that long ago. I'm pretty sure if we go back, we'll find comments by both Estragon and Elubas complimenting Anand's performance. At the time, it was pretty clear that Anand outplayed Topalov in most of the games.

Kasparovs counter is Boris Gulko 

Forgive me for being a simpleton here but I really do think it's all about results. I've played plenty of adroit looking positional games, but failed to win due to my opponent's "crude," yet effective, resistance -- if I don't get the result I didn't sufficiently outplay my opponent. It's really as simple as looking at the score. Anand only won by one point -- pretty close match -- but of course Anand deservedly won, just not dominantly.

Of course you can look at the micro level and say Topalov was on the "weaker end" of the draws (although I really don't recall the details, but it was a nice match). But it seems kinda nit-picky -- it's like saying I totally outplayed my opponent because the end position was king and knight vs king. I'm not really concerned with centipawns, especially when even at the fastidious top levels of chess it doesn't amount to a decisive result. And if we were really looking that deeply, assessing every single one of their moves with an engine 30 minutes apiece, you could probably come up with evidence of either side's superiority in some sense. But what matters is the actual objective criteria: the result. All elegance is meaningless if it does not actually achieve the aim.

What would be ideal is if all the top 100 could play each other in 100 game matches . So if Kramnik beats Carlsen, but loses to a "mere" 2700 player, who is the best? If we say Kramnik is better than Carlsen because he won in the match, couldn't we then say that the 2700 player Kramnik lost to is therefore better than Kramnik, and so forth? And what if Carlsen beat this 2700 player in question?

Too unlikely? We don't think just one 2700 player might be able to beat Kramnik in a match, in the same way humans can sometimes use anti-computer strategy (that is, look for an achilles heel) to get the odd win against a stronger opponent (the engine)? If this hypothetical set of matches could actually occur, it's not that implausible to me that Kramnik might beat Carlsen and at the same time lose to one of those 2700 players, which would put us into a bit of a predicament.

I agree, the result is what matters. Being on the weaker end of a bunch of draws could mean several things, for example, perhaps Topalov was playing for a risky advantage, but always keeping just barely a draw in hand.

I personally would prefer a tournament of the top (say) 8 rated players for the WC, except the possibility of collusion can spoil it.

I didn't have a problem with Gelfand winning the Candidates in 2011. I did have a problem with FIDE declaring the winners of tournaments to be the world champions. The only time a tournament was appropriate was in 1948, when FIDE decided to have a quadruple round robin tournament among the very best players to replace a deceased champion.

There have been many studies done on the optimal methods for determining a champion. While a match isn't statistically guaranteed to determine the better player, it does a better job than a tournament does. And statistically, lengthening a match to 8 games gives a much better chance of the better player advancing than a 4 or 6 game match would. 

The issue becomes one of economics. FIDE could have afforded a similar match-play tournament again this time, but Carlsen would probably not have played. So they changed the format.

SmyslovFan, if Gelfand had won the title match, would you have considered him to be the best player in the world, and if so, how confident would you be in doing so?

Carlsen's reluctance to play matches indicates , to me , that he isnt too confident in his ablity to beat his closest rivals in a head to head match . Why else would he be so insistent on a tournament format ? All the pressure will be on Carlsen to win the Candidates tournament now and it will be interesting to see how he responds to the pressure . 

One ship sails east and the other west,

by the self-same winds that blow.

Tis the set of the sails and not the gales

that determines which way to go.

Carlsen, surely will play the Putin protester crush defence and Kasparov has no hope.

You don't like making the best moves almost all of the time? Sure, unsound combinative play may be more 'interesting' to watch, but there is a fascination in the pure accuracy with which Carlsen plays in the endgame.

And what's not to like about his opening strategy? Lots of people complain about how much the opening dominates the study of the game, and how its killing Chess, and Carlsen is single-handedely refuting that theory.

Nobody can last against Carsen. Especially not a poser like Kasparov.

@ Varelse if u think kasparov is finished then wait 4 his return and u gonna shut up 4 gud! student always beats the teacher. But when it comes to the master of the najdorf sicilian game play no trash! I repeat no trash! Can resist his aggresive and tactical play! Most of you here are kasparov haters!!! Wel i say suck it !!!! He is stil the best chess player who never relied on strong computerz for training in his days!

Honyck, that's very true of most grandmasters today. They consider "style" to be a weakness. I first noticed this idea when Kasparov talked about Beliavsky's style. He suggested that Alexander Beliavsky's strengths gave insights into his weaknesses. 

Today's players try to remove style from their game. It's not just about being a universalist in the tradition of Spassky. Spassky's chess philosophy was akin to the Renaissance ideal, proficient in all things, but not necessarily the best at any one element. Spassky seemed to prefer slightly baroque and offbeat specializations such as the King's Gambit, 1.b4, and mastering endgames with B+N vs two Bishops. Today's chess players strive for perfect precision in all circumstances and remove any preferences for any specific type of game. As a result, today's GMs play a much broader range of openings and positions than at any time in chess history!

Yes, style is only for fun . I tend to view a professional style as something like this: say you like positional games. Whenever you have a choice between a tactical move that is good for you, and a positional move that doesn't achieve much, you still do what you believe to be right -- go for the tactical move. But if on the other hand you have a choice between a tactical or positional move that are approximately equally strong, then you may prefer the positional one.

I feel like it would be kind of difficult to not have even a slight preference for certain aspects of the game. Strangely enough though, I never, ever, develop an absolute preference for a certain type of piece -- I never say "rooks are my favorite pieces," or bishops, queens, pawns, etc. Not sure why -- I guess what I like is using each piece to their best potential and nothing more.

But in terms of positions I prefer and don't prefer -- there is no position I dislike. However, some positions I have a slight preference to play more than others -- it's hard for it not to be this way -- we all like different things, and many different phases of chess have slightly different applications of logic and brainpower. I think the key is to not use those preferences to react in a biased way -- as in the first paragraph.

I get the feeling that the people who truly enjoy all positions completely equally, simply have it in their genes -- I'm not sure you can actually develop yourself to like something more than another. Sometimes, of course, you may not like something only because you haven't explored it fully. And that's sort of what happened to me -- I like tactics and endgames a ton, simply as a result of working with them and trying to appreciate the logic -- you could argue, though, that I "didn't know what tactics truly were," until I worked with them enough. It seems I will always have a slightly softer spot for maneuvering and prophylaxis -- it just gives me a warm feeling inside. But maybe that's because my understanding of the game has yet to deepen.

hold your horses buddy. Kasparov was not the only one who didnt grew up in the computer age although at the peak of his reign he did used it. The likes of Fischer and those before him never had computer assistance in their preparation (im just not sure of botvinik). Kasparov aint finished yet and it is wrong to count him out. But like i said, the chinks in his armour has been seen in his matches against Short and Kramnik and given this present day plus Carlsens experiences with him as trainer (for short period of time), It would be carlsen who would beat him. No amateur chess player hates kasparov as a chess player, he's one of the chess gods. Cool down bro. We are all stating that at this juncture (year 2013 and not Kasparov in his heyday), Kasparov will be beaten by Carlsen in a match.

Good! Now lets have some pizza and a diet coke. Lets drink to that.