Kramnik is stronger then magnus

The Champions League is an excellent example of how to combine a double round robin format with matches. Ok, chess will require matches that are longer than two games, and instead of "home and away", it's white and black. 

The main failing of a series of matches is finding the funding for, say, Gelfand-Grischuk as opposed to Aronian-Carlsen. But if FIDE used the 8 player double round robin to select the top two players for a match, they could have the best of both worlds; a great double round robin tournament to draw in the fans, and a tense match to please the purists.

I don't see how Carlsen being 22 matters when comparing him right now with Vlad at 37.  If youth is an advantage, as is certainly said often enough, then isn't it more impressive that Vlad ties for first in this tournament with someone 15 years younger (and thus presumably mentally quicker)?  I mean, if the argument is that Carlsen will improve, fine, but that sort of implies there exists some sort of "ideal age", let's say 28.  OK, Carlsen is 6 years from that, and Kramnik is almost 10, which means that Kramnik has "de-improved" for longer than Carlsen as "improved" and therefore, if they are roughly equal now, Vlad was stronger at 28 than Carlsen will eventually be at said age.  Of course, this line of reasoning is absurd for a number of reasons but it illustrates the silliness of calling one player better than another of apparently comparable strength because of age disparity in either direction.  Unless you're like those characters in that Vonnegut novel who see things as they exist through time and not as they are in the present moment.

P.S. -> FWIW, I do think Carlsen is clearly a bit better than Kramnik right now, but I found the "because he's 22" reasoning silly. 

I'm not saying he's better because he is 22. All I saying is that Carlsen is yet to improve to his full potential.

He clearly is a great player at the moment but he still could be even better. I rate Kramnik very highly as well and think he is also a very strong player.

When I brought their ages into it I was not necessarily using this to indicate how sharp their thought processes are. I don't think it's possible to call any age ideal. Although your thought processes are likely to decrease after the age of 40 but with the amount of exercise chess players give their brains this could easily be delayed. After all Anand is in his 40's and I don't think anyone could consider him slower than any other top player.

So, I'm not saying he's better because he's 22. I simply think he has an extraordinary understanding of the game of chess which allows him to play at such a high level. At this point in time I would say that Carlsen is the best in the world but only by a small amount.

P.S. I may have exaggerated when I said By comparison Carlsen is far stronger. 

Agreed. Carlsen lost to Peter, and Kramnik lost to Ivanchuk. So, none of them should be the candidate. I would rather know who is better when they play in 10 round match than to know how decisive they beat 6, 7, 8 place players.

In response to SliceOBishop:

I was informed incorrectly then in this case Carlsen simply is the best at chess. Since age plays little or no part this strenghtens my arguement.

LOL

You overlook the fact that all the players knew the rules before the tournament started, and they chose their playing strategy knowing those rules. If the rules had been "player with fewest losses" wins on tie break, most of the players would have played differently, and the results would not have been the same.

I agree 100% !!  I prefer the old system of head to head matches myself but this candidates tournament was certainly a HUGE improvement over what they had last time !  I think its fair that Carlsen goes through because he won more games , even though he also lost more games . The " GM draw " has become a real problem and FIDE is trying to discourage them as much as possible and to encourage/reward fighting chess they are using most wins as a serious tie break . I think this is good for chess and encourages all the players to fight as now a win is worth more than 2 draws .  ( at least when this tie break is used ) I also am relieved that I don't have to see another Kramnik/Anand match .  Kramnik had his shot and he was beaten handily , let's see a different challenger .  I predict Anand will beat Carlsen without much trouble . 

No but i think anand is better than him(carlsen) now

I called Kramnik back in '93, saying he was going to be the man Kasparov needed to watch out for.

My friends were all like "Kramnik? Who?"

I remember Anand saying Carlsen was difficult to beat and that was like 3 yrs ago. So now I think Carlsen Carlsen will be difficult to draw.

Now that Carlsen is the official WCC, a match against Kramnik is something I'd love to see.

+1.

+1.

Remember, this thread was not about the World Championship match, it was about the Candidates' tournament. Kramnik and Carlsen ended up tied at the end of that tournament. The tournament had a very odd rule that the player with the most losses advanced in case of a tie. Traditional tie-breaks would have favored Kramnik in that tournament, but Carlsen advanced to play Anand.

I would love to see Kramnik play Carlsen in a match for the world championship. Carlsen would be favored in such a match, but it would be closer than the one that just ended.

Nailed it.