Magnus:King of the Endgames

Maybe inaccuracy is a better word. I think he sees more subtle inaccuracies than his peers, makes fewer of them himself, and is more consistent in his play. That combined with his amazing positional abilities (google for Kasparov and others talking about Carlsen's amazing positional sense) and incredible endgame skills is more than enough to explain why he is dominating the chess scene at the moment.

There is something to the idea of him having a psychological edge, but it's the same kind of psychological edge that Kasparov and Fischer had. People are scared because they know when he is on form, they're in for an incredibly tough game that they will probably consider themselves fortunate to draw.

Smyslov Fan, I'm not sure what you're claiming here: is your general point that Magnus is the world #1 mainly because he is fortunate enough for his opponents to make mistakes (and apparently, only when they play him and not when they play other super GMs)?

If this sort of thing happened just one time or something yeah, I wouldn't make much out of it, but this is what Magnus does so often against his top level opponents! You'd even think Radjabov would be prepared for a long fight this time since he's been through this before! Considering how many equal endings Magnus has won, I have to question whether, even for 2700+ players, it's really so mindlessly easy to avoid being outplayed from some of these simple looking endings as it may seem.

Claiming that Carlsen didn't play the endgame on an especially high level is a statement that is difficult to support. If you follow a game like this on one of the sites with low ply engine evaluation it is easy to be critical of some individual moves, for example Carlsen's avoiding the 51. Ka2 line that had a higher engine eval but seems to lead to a drawn position with best play. He went in the other direction with the king and in a less forced line it was probably easier for the opponent to go wrong with little time in a difficult position.

Radjabov spent his time calculating the Rc1+ line, and it was partly because of spending much time there he did blitz out engine first choices in 80-90% of his immediately following moves around there. I don't think Radjabov made numerous mistakes (or even blunders) before the 50th move. Move 45-46 were inaccuracies, but it isn't easy to avoid making any at all when you are under pressure.

It was always Capablanca. 

Carlsen has undeniably a psychological advantage over most of his opponents : when they face him, they expect a tough game,long suffering etc. This MAY make them making more mistakes.

But this does not mean that Carlsen is not the best player : he has a psychological advantage which add to his objective strength.

Chess being a game and a sport, being able to put a lot of psychological pressure on your opponent is part of chess ability : Tal, Fisher, Kasparov, Capablanca, Morphy were known for this.

They are buying into the myth. Plain and simple. Carlsen will dominate as long as they let him. Karpov was the same until Kasparov turned out to be more arrogant than he was.

So it was arrogance all a long that made Kasparov and Karpov great players. Yup, makes sense to me.

Thank you for your well thought out post, you must be a real chess genius yourself

I never once said that Carlsen does not deserve to be #1 in the world. 

Carlsen's psychological advantage is very pronounced against young and relatively inexperienced players such as Radjabov and Karjakin. Against more experienced players, he doesn't get so many inexplicable wins. Against Ivanchuk, Svidler, Kramnik, and even Anand, Carlsen does not tend to win from even positions in the endgame. He may win in other ways, but not in his "trademark" method.

Again, Carlsen clearly deserves to be number 1 in the world right now. But the myth of his perfect endgame technique has been publicly challenged by Kramnik and Nakamura. I agree with them. 

Carlsen's brilliance is a combination of technique, an incredible desire to score the full point, and stamina. He has made his task easier by gaining the reputation of being an absolute machine in the endgame. But a close analysis of his games by his peers (not me, the +2700 crowd he faces), has shown that his endgame play is not as infallible as many believe. 

Just take a look at his games against Ivanchuk and Svidler, two very experienced players, in the Candidates' Finals for proof of this.

I'm not the first to have pointed this out. Kramnik, Ivanchuk, and Nakamura said the same thing. 

Carlsen isn't perfect or infallible, no one is and no one is of course ever proclaiming it either. But he is the strongest endgame player in the world.

Sorry can you tell me exactly when Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Nakamura said that? And please provide the source

Nakamura's comments were on ICC yesterday.

Kramnik said that in an interview on chessbase. It's still there if you want to read it.

Ivanchuk's comments were in the press conference after his win against Carlsen at the Candidates. He had said something similar before the tournament too, but I don't remember whether it was published on chessbase, ChessVibes or another chess news site.

So they say that Carlsen's endgame play isn't as good as people believe? I'm sure people rightfully believe his endgame play is better than their endgame play though. As for Kramnik, I recall his saying that Carlsen isn't better than him at all, but that his lead on the rating list is due to non-chess related reasons. Well, maybe he believes that himself.

I give Carlsen the edge in complex endgames/simple middle games, but in pure endgames, I think Kramnik is still the best in the world with Aronian, Carlsen and Anand close behind. 

Carlsen and Anand will be able to demonstrate who is better in these pure endgames in November. If Anand is in shape, he will be at least as good as Carlsen in the endgame. But whether Anand can show the same stamina as Carlsen is probably the key question regarding the match!

And I'm not claiming Carlsen is the best at every aspect of the game; but I do think overall, his chess is simply the strongest today. On average he is the one who can most effectively achieve good results, and frankly it's hard to downplay such a skill. I get the feeling that some of the veterans, while they generally concede that Carlsen is the best today, they make little jabs at him, point out any little flaw in his play or his form, or even the play of his opponents.

Normally the veterans would be able to say something like "Yeah this kid is pretty good, and some day he'll even be better than us" -- but they can't really say that because the "promising kid" has already topped everyone in the ratings and basically sustained this for a few years and counting. Of course for Carlsen to win the match will be even more convincing, but he has already done so much and people should appreciate that.

Carlsen is not perfect -- no human is -- but it irks me that people are hard on him when at such a young age he has already surpassed, in ratings, players who are so much more experienced than him. Instead we pick out one or two times where he didn't perform well and criticize (it's probably saying something that the worst we can say about his recent results was his performance at the candidates, when even there he had a performance rating of over 2800; not Magnus's best, but it's hard to simply call this bad -- to say that Carlsen merely performed like a 2800 one time). We could do that with anyone if we wanted to -- we could talk about Kramnik's ...Ne8? in the candidates, or Anand's blunder against Adams at the London Classic. Personally, I think we should just look at the big picture.

Also, speaking of guys like Kramnik, Ivanchuck, and Svidler, if what Carlsen does isn't so extraordinary, why don't these guys try to score "cheap points" against people in the lower 2700s themselves? Too much class? I agree stamina is a huge thing going for Carlsen, yet if Carlsen wasn't that amazing at endings he'd probably overpress just as often as he grinds a win in the equal endings he plays -- obviously any one can try to win; you still have to play lots of really good moves! I'm just not convinced that to relentlessly exploit so many small endgame errors, and make so few yourself, doesn't require a very acute understanding of endgame themes.

I won't go as far to say that Carlsen is, necessarily, the best endgame player currently, but if he isn't then he could not be far behind -- the fact that Magnus can do wonders with so many equal positions can be tried to be written off, but it's a hard thing to do. One could make the argument that since Carlsen has a tough time beating Kramnik, he has a tough time showing his superiority. However, if, say, Kramnik has a tough time grinding out wins against a lower 2700 (something Magnus often does, a feat which seems to be under-appreciated), then I can just as easily question how superior Kramnik is to that 2700. High level chess is such that even if you're better than your opponent, it's fairly likely your superiority won't be enough to actually force a win. It's only over the course of many games where you begin to notice the difference.

To me it's hard to find support for the idea that Carlsen isn't as good at endgames as Kramnik. It isn't just the endgames between the two that I posted earlier in the thread, Kramnik misplays endgames once in a while. The first example that comes to mind is

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1672566

where he misses many wins and eventually draws. But that is just a single example and says less than the mentioned endgames between Carlsen and Kramnik.

Carlsen has a lead of 60 points on the rating list and has produced +2 or better results in every tournament he has played since 2010, usually winning them. He has done this with comparatively weak openings. Tkachiev wrote that no #1 in the history of the game ever had as weak openings as Carlsen has.

At the same time it is often pointed out that Kramnik's opening preparation is extremely impressive. Looking at the Candidates he got a big advantage on board and clock in every white game. After 15 moves he was usually at least an hour up and still in his prep. Anand said that Kramnik's openings are prepared well into the endgame.

Now, if Kramnik really was better than Carlsen in the endgame (something I see no reason to believe myself), and it is undeniable that he is much better in the openings, and Carlsen isn't seen as some sort of tactical middlegame maestro like Kasparov, how can Carlsen reach so superior results? I think Carlsen's strongest side is his endgames, and that he is the player with the best endgame technique.

i am personally not sure if he is a 'good endgame player' or just gets good endgame positions. i think it is the latter. he then doesn't really need to show if he is any good. the game is probably already won by that point.

Post #39: I am making an assumption here, based on the tournaments I have followed over the course of the last two years or longer. I'm talking about those sorts of equal endings where a decisive result, for players so strong, would be surprising. Such games happen quite frequently with Carlsen; I just don't find myself saying "wow xxxx happened to win this game; yet the position just looked totally sterile, without much life" very often when looking through the games of other super GMs. I'm sure it happens, but not nearly as often as with Carlsen unless my eyes are really playing tricks on me, as well as those writing articles for New in Chess magazine.

elubas, what i have generally seen is that if the endgame is equal, then the players just shake hands. normally, when they play on, the position is not equal in the sense of being sterile, for example, both sides may have passed pawns or one side may have an active king or different majoritites on different parts of the board. and i don't think these advantages happen by accident but by design. how exactly you win it is something you start worrying about when you get the actual position, but you know somewhere that such and such kind of advantage should be good. this is what i mean by saying that magnus probably doesn't need to show his endgame skill much.

for example, in his game against radjabov, he had a further outside passed pawn on the other wing. in his game against hammer, he had an active king.