Friday
Sep102010
Carlsen Beats the World
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 2:24PM The G-STAR RAW World Chess Challenge has finished, and Magnus Carlsen easily dispatched the world team led by Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Judit Polgar. The World played a King's Indian, and against the Fianchetto Variation they quickly got confused. On move 7 Polgar recommended 7...e5, which won out over the more topical 7...a6 chosen by Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave, and it was clear that they really weren't familiar and comfortable with the line. Definitely a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. White was much already much better in the opening, and already lost by move 17. Carlsen rolled, and the only drama was when the World team would resign.
I'll post the game, with some notes, later today.
Reader Comments (4)
'Definitely a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. '
A point that Polgar made in the post-match press conference, such as it was, in a rather laboured way. But I doubt any of them individually would have done much better.
Chess by committee certainly failed today. Polgar was right. Actually, all of them individually would have performed better on their own. Statistically speaking, each of them can be expected to score about 35-40% against Magnus in rated play. Playing as individuals their play would certainly have the cohesion and coherence sorely lacking today from the world's amateurs.
More interesting, and perhaps of more dramatic value, would be Carlsen playing against the other three combined, without the "help" of the rest of the world. Are there any examples of such events? Vaguely similar is Kasparov's simul against the Israeli national team. It would be an interesting question how the three would or would best combine their resources. The pressure on both sides might be quite high.
Kasparov once played a simul against all masters. I forget what exactly the conditions were (juniors? IMs?) etc but it was a good 10 boards I think.
[DM: Kasparov has played many simuls against strong players, including several four board simuls against national teams! The most remarkable of his performances came against an Israeli national team (I believe all four players were over 2600), which he beat 3-1 the first day (with alternating colors on each board) and 4-0 the second day (with the opposite colors on each board). But in none of these simuls - at least none that I'm aware of - did any of the "simulees" have the right to confer with one another or with anyone else.]