You all should get watching the Aronian/Anand match right now

It is unfortunate that they all cannot play each other with both White and Black pieces...this would be the fair way. As is, there is some luck of the draw involved. Interesting enough, Carlsen, Anand, and Aronian plays White-7 and Black-5 , while the bottom Hou, Wang and L'Ami plays White- 6 and Black- 6...is this really ramdom?

Yes, especially after what we saw today!

So, here's the Total Field-

                 Black             White

Carlsen       7                    6

Aronian       7                    6

Anand         7                     6

Karjakin      7                     6

Harikrishna  7                     6

Sokolov       7                     6

Leko           7                      6

Naka           6                      7

Caruana       6                      7

Hou             6                      7

Wang           6                      7

L'Ami           6                       7

van Wely      6                       7

Giri              6                       7

*Original Post corrected.

Seeing how playing White is a clear advantage, it would be interesting to see if Tournament results favour the players with the most white pieces.

Not when 'most blacks' is used as a tiebreak...

Yeah, that's how they're trying to even it out -- I wonder whether it's an advantage to have 5 whites and tiebreaks, or 6 whites and crappy tiebreaks. Seems even enough.

This is all wrong.  There are 14 players in the A group and its a round robin so each player will play 13 games and no player has more than 1 extra white or black . 

 I don't believe that randomness equals fairness.

If you could choose who you were white against, it would make a difference. For instance, Black against Carlsen seems to just about guarantee a loss, but Black against Hou Yifan or Van Wely may be more tolerable. It may even be possible to win as Black against some of these other players.

It would be interesting if players were allowed to bid on who they got to play as white or black. Of course, it would complicate things without necessarily improving the tournament. And it may make for some sore feelings, but it would be interesting.

Nakamura, Caruana, van Wely, Wang, Giri, L´Ami and Hou each play 7 games as Black and 6 as White; Carlsen, Anand, Aronian, Leko, Karjakin, Sokolov and Harikrishna play 7 as White and 6 as Black.

Just out of interest, I compared the average ratings of all 6 or 7 opponents for each player when he plays as Black. Here are the results:

First column: the players´ own ratings. Second column: the average rating of all his opponents in the games where he has the black pieces. Third column: this average as a percentage of the average rating of all 14 players.

There´s quite a spread. Leko has as Black on average the weakest opponents (pardon the term, we´re discussing Super-GM´s!), with an average rating of 2708. Sokolov has the worst deal as Black, with an opponents´ average of 2765. Interestingly, Carlsen´s opponents have on average exactly the same rating as the average rating of all players (2732).

All this evens out of course; if you have weaker opponents as Black, you´ll have the stronger ones as White, and vice versa. Depends on your preferences, which way round you´d rather have it!

Thanks for the correction NM Reb and CapnPugwash.

I have since corrected my original posting.

So by having an even number of players, half of the field will have an unfair advantage by playing one more game with white...in this case 7 players out of 14. Seems rather unfair for 7 players...is there no other way, where all players would have gotten to play equal Black and White?

Yes. You could have a double round robin.  But that's too costly. The players agreed to the tournament conditions. They obviously don't think it's terribly unfair.

What is Kasparov implying that smiling after losing signifies for him?

That you don't have the right mentality - you should be gutted not smiling.

Yes, Aronian is too nice and too happy for his own good.

That's why Aronian is my favorite player, his positive attitude is so admirable.

It's quite clear that Garrik meant anoyne wanting to be a world champion, or close to that, should have a huge ego, and Aronian doesn't.

This sort of attitude toward winning isn't unique to chess. Coaches in many sports don't like seeing players smiling after losing.

Personally, I have no problem with that. Smiling and joking after an important loss is the way some people relieve the tension they feel. You can't really tell how whether a person lacks fighting spirit by their demeanor after the game.

I agree, it endears Aronian to me that he is able to smile. It may be that those who scowl and suffer have a better chance to become champions, but what is more important, a place in the history books, or one's own experience in life? It was one of the transcendentalists who said something like, life is what goes through a man's head all day, and it seems Aronian is having himself a nice life :).

I sense a certain amount of restraint (or a lack thereof) in each player's comments on this game. Like true chess players they are very strategic in their answers: Anand admits that it was preparation and honestly conceeds there is a certain amount of comfort in playing a position that you know is theoretically sound, but emphasizes that he did not fully remember all the lines and had to double check and improvise to a degree, particularly f5; Aronian smiles embarassedly and basically says that he stepped on a landmine made for some other war, but takes nothing away from its potency;  Carlsen focuses on the positive and non-commitally calls it "mind-blowing", which for me is code for computer assisted; and my favorite response was Giri's who, when asked if he had seen the game said something like, "Yes, I saw it. And I think Anand saw it too, many times on his computer." Ahhh Giri, I'm beginning to like you :D

Is he not close to that?

It seems some people think Aronian should bang his head against the wall or kick a concrete column after such a drubbing , like Ivanchuk is known to do ? I prefer his reaction to loss over Ivanchuks and Kasparovs both . You dont have to act like a jerk just because you lost, even when you lose badly.