Once and Future Kings: Top Ten Storylines from the 2013 Candidates Tournament

The just concluded Candidates Tournament in London was certainly an event that will take an honoured place among the greatest chess contests of all time, such as Hastings 1895, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, AVRO 1938, Hague/Moscow 1948, Zurich 1953, San Luis 2005 and so forth.

This is a quick attempt to try and summarize and relive some of the main highlights of this amazing tournament by listing the top ten "Characters", as it were, that made it so memorable.

#10 - The Peanut Gallery (Trent, Short, Speelman, et. al)

IM Lawrence Trent has done live commentary for major chess events in London for some time, but it's unlikely anything could have prepared him for the task before him in this tournament - 7+ hours each day of juggling four massively complex games on live TV without becoming completely knackered was arguably the most impressive performance in London.  Also notable were Short's disturbingly random digressions into pop-music and stalemates, Speelman's ever wry offstage commentary (especially in complex endgames), and the occasionally colourful kibitz from various wandering grandmasters in the audience (easily identifiable by their Russian accents).

#9 - Anastasia the Queen

Perhaps an unsung heroine of this event would be the translator for the post-game interviews, Anastasia Karlovich.  In general, these interviews were rather pointless as the players were rarely able to slow down their chess thoughts sufficiently to coherently explain what was going on to the outside world, but with Anastasia calmly and gracefully transforming the constant influx of Russian questions and answers into English, we could occasionally glimpse the human side of this brutal competition.

#8 - Grischuk the Philosopher

Grischuk is ever the enigma in high level chess - he is consistently among the top ten, yet rarely wins major tournaments outright.  Furthermore, he is often rather laconic in interviews, perhaps due to some discomfort he might have expressing himself in English.  The time, however, a certain rather fatalistically Russian aspect of his persona came out in his interviews and commentary that was by turns funny and poignant.  In particular, his comment to Lawrence Trent's question about how the tournament seemed to him was almost too profound for the occasion:

"...yesterday I was quite shocked that tomorrow is the last round, and I got a thought that someday the same will happen with my life - I will think, oh, it's already finished, how could it happen so quickly?"

#7 - Radjabov the Hexed

Someone who must have felt like this tournament lasted far too long was poor Radjabov, who, perhaps due to extra pressure upon him from his Azerbaijani sponsors, seemed to be in psychological free-fall ever since round 8 or so.  However, either in spite or because of this, his two games against Carlsen were both pivotal moments in an event replete with twists and turns - the first because he seemed to be winning easily yet could only draw, and the second because he seemed to be drawing easily but instead lost.  The fact that Carlsen scored +1.5 against him (instead of what could so easily have been .5) is perhaps the major reason Magnus plays Anand later this year for the WC.

#6 - Gelfand the Kingmaker

Striking as Radjabov's contributions to Carlsen were, it could nevertheless be argued that the former WC challenger, Boris Gelfand, found a way to almost singlehandedly determine the new one by going -2 against Carlsen and +1 against everyone else.  Conspiracy theories, anyone? :)

 #5 - Aronian the Knight Errant

After all the turbulence of the last few rounds, it's easily to forget that Aronian was practically leading the tournament for quite some time early on and, had he not found a way to lose a completely drawn position against Kramnik, would have still finished first with Carlsen (though the tiebreaks would likely have favoured Magnus in this case as well).  Ah well.  I don't suppose it's much consolation for Levon, but I rather suspect the next championship will be between him and Carlsen -  unless another, cleverer, Ivanov comes along, of course.

 #4 - Svidler the Wizard

A revelation (for me, at any rate) was the consistently strong play by Peter Svidler who not only came within an ace of tying for first but also produced two of the best games of the entire tournament: his wild draw against Grischuk and his final round win over Carlsen:

#3 - Chucky the Jester

Ivanchuk is Caissa's capricious spirit personified - losing not one, not two, but FIVE games on time, and yet also managing to defeat both first place finishers in absolutely crucial games.  Long may he continue to befuddle us all and remind us that chess is not merely a matter of technique but also of creativity and inspiration.

#2 - Kramnik the (Once) King

I admit I was rooting for Kramnik in this tournament - he was playing great chess from the start, but couldn't manage to win several games he had clearly outplayed his opponents in.  Then came his fantastic comeback to catch Magnus and even lead the tournament after twelve rounds.  Also, I suppose the fact he's older and might retire soon also made me sympathetic to his cause, for Magnus's ride to power is almost inevitable and Vlad has but a little while longer to fight for glory.  That said, to lose his chance in such a bizarre way in the last round symbolically completes his main arc in modern chess history, from his strange qualification for his match with Kasparov (Shirov was, as we may recall, the rightful challenger), to his miraculous save versus Leko and infamous encounter with Topalov, and finally now his quixotic yielding of the mantle to the heir apparent Magnus Carlsen. 

#1 - Carlsen the (Future) King

Magnus's right to play Anand for the title was never in doubt at any time in this tournament - the only question was if the whims of random fate would carry another past him for now, and for a while it seemed to be that way, first with Aronian, then Kramnik.  It is therefore fitting that, just when his chances seemed darkest, Caissa decided to finally smile a bit on the one player who seemed never to require her favour - the steady and predictable Norwegian, who very likely might not lose as many games in the next year or two as he has over the last four days. Thus the "equalizing injustice" of chess has never been more convincingly demonstrated than in this tournament, and in the end we have what I suspect we all, regardless of our own personal favourites, know to be the ideal result - the world's highest rated player (by a mile) challenging the current World Champion.  May that match be even half as entertaining as this was!

Btw, this game in the final round by Aronian deserves special mention - it got lost among all the craziness:

I told you Svidler would do well!

You never pick up your phone.  Note also that this article will be completely ignored in spite of being the best thing ever written about chess ever.

Nice Post!

This tournament was a movie thriller!

Cue **GAME OF THRONES INTRO MUSIC**

The trifecta of Carlsen,Kramnik and Aronian was a fierce rivalry

The opening games paints  a seemingly silent tone.All games drawn,it carries a creeping suspense.

By the first half,Carlsen seems to be the hero but Aronian is sweeping people of the board with his tactical prowess.Kramnik on the other hand is very tame like an old glorified king who lost  all his vigour in past wars.

By the middle rounds,the mighty kinght,Aronian, is felled!

And it seemed like Carlsen is on a sure collision course with Anand.

Kramnik is amused,it was the time to strike and strike he did! Notching up wins by the second half,the show gets a turn around.It's now a showdown between an old king in Kramnik vs the ambitious conqueror in Carlsen.

But somewhere in the shadows,someone is lurking,hatching an evil plan.It's Chucky,the Joker!Flagging games left and right,he manages to stab an unsuspecting Magnus right when it mattered.What a twist of events!

We enter the climax.Carlsen is severly wounded.The old dog in Kramnik is catching up.Kramnik draws.Carlsen wins the penultimate round in a battle of nerves against a side player in Radjabov.The final round is hanging by a thread.Carlsen and Kramnik knows what's at stake.Carlsen overpushes against the wizard in Svidler,resulting in another loss,his cloak of invincibility questioned.His fate lies ironically in the game of the Jester,Ivanchuk, against his nemesis in Kramnik.For now Carlsen waits.....

The gods of chess is on his side!The Jester fells Kramnik!

Our hero wins this war by a hairline margin.

Too bad about Kramnik - NOT. I still recall how he deliberately and intentionally avoided a rematch with Kasparov so I guess what goes around comes around sooner or later, eh? 

BUT, that doesn't justify the bogus idea of winning the right to play Anand based on tie-break points; in fact the title of "World Chess Champion" really doesn't mean as much as it did back when Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov had to play  3 candidates matches before facing the champ - in a 24 game match not 10 or 12!

AND the 1948 World CH Tnmt and 1962 Candidates Tnmt were both quadruple rd robins not double rd robins - a much better method format IMHO.

A very nice article indeed : you may want to write a blog entry to give it greater exposure in the chess.com community.

You're a real chess lover !

Hopefully, we'll have a tournament book : too bad QC wrote they didn't want to do it...

I wonder if we could get Quentin Tarantino to direct it?...

I also think that in some ways this is a sort of karmic retribution for Vlad, but at the same time I also think it was Kasparov's responsibility to organize in good faith a match with Shirov and not Kramnik's to refuse a shot at the title on "principle", something no chess player outside of Morphy (or perhaps Euwe) would have done in his shoes.

Anyhow, thank you for your encouragement, but I'm pretty sure blogging about the tournament reaches less more people than this way unless I somehow get featured (which I've no idea how to go about even requesting).

nice arcticle

You guys reminded me Kasparov was no angel either he helped get Kramnik into the challengers seat by screwing Shirov, so I guess what went around came back when he lost his title to Kramnik.

BUT Shirov got screwed outta $250,000?? Holy cowabunga!

Great article!!

enjoyed reading it and the last game of Levon and Raj was awesome

Thank you - if there's sufficient interest I might consider further articles about this tournament, such as a survey of the more interesting games, opening novelties, endgame themes, etc.

Great Article! Loved it.

very impresive artical thanks1

Interesting article...good job.

I'm interested.

"If you write it, they will come."

The above article was great. You could, and maybe should, write a short book on the 2013 Candidates Tournament. There is interest, I think.

PS: Great article GB, you could also post it as a blog for the heck of it and see how many hits it gets that way.

OK, so...

As suggested, I posted this (and my followup article on the games themselves) as a blog and so far it's got pretty much zero hits.  That is to say, random blogs with a single youtube link to Katy Perry songs and/or cat pictures have a larger viewership.

I'm sorry to say this, as I think my blog has often been rather good, especially compared with what actually *is* featured, but there doesn't seem to be any possible way to gain it any exposure, as there's a vicious loop working against it:

A) To be a "featured blogger", you have to have a lot of readers (or a title and/or administrative help)

B) 99.999% of chess.com members are only aware of blogs shown on the front page

C) The only blogs shown on the front page are from "featured bloggers"

Since I lack a title, this seems to me to be an almost insurmountable catch-22.

Anyhow, thank you all for your nice comments, and if anyone has any ideas for how to get any of my material noticed by more than five and a half people, please do share!

Sincerely,

- John