Who will win the 2013 world championship? Anand or Carlsen?

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Post #120: Well, it depends then on what you mean by "better of the two players." If you mean, one player tends to be good at scoring points against the other, then sure, but it seems strange to call that the "overall better player among the group of Player X and Player Y." As if to say, if Gelfand beat Anand last year he would have proven he is a better player than Anand.

In the same vein as fabelhaft's post #112, in Norway chess Wang Hao beat Magnus Carlsen and I believe Vishy Anand. Yet Hammer beat Wang Hao, and lost to Carlsen and Vishy. So you're saying between Hammer and Wang Hao, Hammer is better, even though Wang Hao is better than Carlsen and Vishy (he beat them), and Hammer is worse than Carlsen and Vishy (he lost to them)? Hammer is better than a player (Wang Hao) who is better than two people Hammer is worse than?

However, you do make a good point about how rating differences can partly be caused by a player going to more tournaments than another. Still, do we really have any idea what variables cause, say Vassily's performance? Maybe it's because he plays in too many tournaments, maybe for some other reason, but this is all a lot of speculation, don't you think? And to be fair, couldn't you argue the same for a world championship -- if one player goes to too many tournaments, it would affect his performance in the WCC as well, right? There is no system, including ratings, that are perfect, but in general the way ratings work make a ton of sense.

I agree there's no perfect system.

As for the tournament, one game means little.  So I agree you can't compare by saying Hammer beat Hao beat Carlsen beat Hammer = paradox.

Imagine it in a club setting.  Set they wanted to know which of us were better.  Would you rather play a match or compare our results to certain club members... but not he same members and not the same number of games played against each member.

The top players play eachother often enough that I'd agree their relative standings are accurate enough.  If the rating gap is as big as Carlsen's then maybe ratings do make the most sense.

I remember back before Carlsen entered the top 10 the ratings of the top 3-5 players were really close.  At the beginning of the year would you really crown a new champion based on a 10 rating point lead from #2?  I think the points I mentioned would be more than enough to account for that.

I agree, when differences are really small, it's less clear (although I think 10 points is just enough to be pretty confident; less than that maybe not). On the other hand, Carlsen's rating is by far the highest now

i think carlsen might win but i think it will be close.i am a fan of both.

10 points, I'd call it an even match.

87 points? That's going to be a blowout.

It's not about crowning World Champions based on a 10 point rating gap, the World Championship has nothing to do with the rating list. In 2004 Kasparov and Anand were maybe the two best players in the world, but the title match was between Kramnik and Leko (and was drawn). This match didn't show that Kramnik had some sort of gap down to Kasparov or Anand (or even Leko), but he was World Champion simply because of the rules of the competition called the World Championship.

So Shirov ranks ahead of Kramnik? And Short ranks ahead of Karpov? They were certainly better in the one event they won, but one single event means little when you compare careers. And ranking players becomes impossible since Shirov and Short lost at other occasions to players that were weaker than Kramnik and Karpov. If Gulko had beaten Kasparov in a match in 1992 it wouldn't mean that he must be the best player in the world, especially not if he lost badly to all other players in the top ten.

If you compare matches from different times then it's pointless.  e.g. Kramnik beat Kasparov.  It's just silly.  Of course early career or near retirement is not the same as peak form.

Kasparov won ten super tournaments in a row 1998-2002, but he still lost that match to a player that previous years had lost matches clearly to not only Shirov but also Kamsky and Gelfand. Kasparov had 40-1 in wins against those three players. Such things happen. But how many title matches have really been played when both players were at their peaks and in top form? Anyone that loses unexpectedly will immediately be said to not have been in top form.

After we get done kicking Vishy's butt in votechess next week, we'll let The Magnus have the leftovers.

In 25 years of tournament chess, I have never beaten a healthy man.

i think Carlsen will, but I hope Anand does

Carlsen is going to be unlike anything Anand is used to. magnus will not agree to any of Vishy's short draws. And will play every game to the bitter end. Looking for wins in even the dullest of positions. Not stopping until there is no possible hint of life left in the game.

Then the next day, they get to set the pieces up, and do it al over again.

Carlsen plans to beat him through attrition. I almost feel sorry for poor Anand. He is about to be squeezed through a slow, painful wringer.

I felt sorry for Anand against Gelfand. The only win he got came after Gelfand made the worst opening blunder of his career and lost quicker than any other player in World Championship history. That's what it took for Anand to get his only win in his last more than 20 games against an opponent that recently lost four games in a row against Carlsen. But this time it might be easier for Anand with regards to psychological pressure, he knows that Carlsen is the big favourite, and that is more of a challenge than being told all the time that he just has to win easily, as last time.

Yes, and some people also meant that Anand was much stronger than his results from recent years, and expected him to play his "real" level in the title match. But it didn't look any different than in his other events. It's clear that he really has dropped quite a lot in playing strength the last five-six years, and that Carlsen is a challenger on a totally different level than Gelfand, so it won't be easy for Anand.

I think it's tough though in a short match against a player that is slightly weaker, as Anand had against Gelfand. The difference is so small that a draw is the expected outcome in every game. Grischuk won his Candidates matches against stronger players like Kramnik and Aronian simply by drawing and then winning the tiebreak. It's easy to get impatient when you are the better player and "must" win but can't find a way to do it, and the tiebreak where anything can happen gets closer and closer.

Anand,no doubt

I wonder why Carlsen is the favorite. But Anand is the world champion.

I still think anand is will win this. In previous tournament, he's reserving his prepared openings for his title defense. I think he has still a lot of hidden aces compared to Carlsen who needed to do his best to be a contender for the WC.

The format is match play. Something that Carlsen has avoided literally like the Fide World Cup starting at the quarter finals and the Fide Candidate Matches old format. However he will probably settle after 3 games. Carlsen is prepared to draw all the games and decide it in the rapids. He has been active in the last 3 years in the blitz and rapids World championships! Experience will indeed be a factor favoring Anand but i believe the pressure playing in his hometown would also affect him. If the games will be decided in the endgame i believe Anand will have the upperhand, infact i believe that would be one of his strategies! 

I wouldn't say that Carlsen has avoided "Fide Candidate Matches old format", they just haven't existed during his career. The closest thing to it was the six game Candidates match that he played in 2007, after qualifying in the World Cup 2005. Then he was ranked last of the 16 participants and faced first ranked Aronian. The match finished 3-3 in classical chess and 5-5 after rapid tiebreak, before Aronian won the blitz tiebreak.

"I hope they both lose..."

Jared Allen - when asked who he wanted to win the Superbowl.