Candidates Tournament, Round 13: Carlsen Wins, Catches Kramnik And Has Tiebreak Odds For The Last Round
Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 4:20PM My physical condition is roughly the same (maybe a bit better in certain respects, but maybe worse in another), so I'm afraid I'm going to offer an even more cursory report than I did for the last round. So let's get on with it while I can.
Vladimir Kramnik entered the round half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen, and scheduled for White while Carlsen was due Black (not against each other). Nevertheless, I felt that today's pairings presented a better opportunity for Carlsen, and that's just how things turned out. Kramnik pressed hard against his long-time friend (or at least very friendly colleague) Boris Gelfand and seemed close to a win at times, but Gelfand's resourceful counterattacking defense with his rooks enabled him to save the game. (For theory-watchers, Kramnik's 5.e3 was a fascinating new move (at least new to this level), and Gelfand was very complimentary about the idea and in his respect for Kramnik's ability to find new opening concepts. Gelfand offered a remark to the effect that in recent years, Kramnik may have come up with more new ideas than the rest of us combined.
I'm sure the compliment was appreciated, but the bottom line is that Kramnik didn't get what he needed today, and now his fate is out of his hands. Carlsen had virtually nothing against Teimour Radjabov for a long time, but (especially) given Radjabov's last-place status and his self-admitted lack of confidence, Carlsen was entirely justified in playing on and hoping something would turn up. As it so often happens with Carlsen's opponents, something did, and after 89 moves and almost seven hours of play, Carlsen had pulled off the win.
This leaves Carlsen and Kramnik tied for first, but due to the unfortunate decision to use tiebreaks rather than a playoff, and the further (to my mind unfortunate) fact that the tiebreak that will settle things in this case is "most wins" (why not "fewest losses?" But let me emphasize that I think both are lousy - use a playoff!), it means that if Carlsen defeats Peter Svidler tomorrow (Carlsen will have the white pieces), he wins the event no matter what Kramnik does. Kramnik will have Black against Vassily Ivanchuk, which makes for a pretty random situation. Ivanchuk has had a lot of disasters in this tournament, many of them self-inflicted, but he has also won his last two games with White - including round 12 against Carlsen.
For completeness' sake: Svidler defeated Ivanchuk in good style, while Alexander Grischuk and Levon Aronian drew, resulting in the latter's mathematical elimination from the race for first.
Standings After Round 13:
- 1-2. Carlsen, Kramnik 8.5
- 3-4. Aronian, Svidler 7
- 5-6. Grischuk, Gelfand 6
- 7. Ivanchuk 5
- 8. Radjabov 4
Last Round Pairings:
- Carlsen - Svidler
- Ivanchuk - Kramnik
- Gelfand - Grischuk
- Aronian - Radjabov
Tournament website here.
Reader Comments (16)
It's hard to fault Magnus for playing forever but it felt cheap to me.
It was a dead position for a very, very long time obvious, and the clocks seemed to show a considerable time pressure for Radjabov. Watching Magnus wait for him to blunder in time pressure felt like watching a couple of guys play for time in an opposite bishops ending. It kind of denudes the amazing run Kramnik put together and the fact that Kramnik hasn't lost at all.
If it was unprofessional to play for a win in a very bad position versus Ivanchuck, would he have said the same thing if Radjabov hadn't blundered?
Hi, Dennis.
I'm sure others will point this out, but Ivanchuk has only won one White game in this event, in round nine vs. Radjabov. Ivanchuk was Black vs. Carlsen in round 12.
Hope you feel better soon, especially as I very much enjoy your work on this site.
[DM: Whoops, you are correct. Thanks for the well-wishes.]
It would have been exciting if there was a playoff in case of a tie, but the last round should be exciting even without that possibility. With Kramnik being black and Carlsen white you'd think Kramnik is in bad shape, but since Kramnik is having an excellent tournament and Ivanchuk isn't doing that well he certainly has his chances. Also Carlsen's opponent Svidler is having a pretty good tournament himself so it should be interesting.
Ivanchuk lost on time for the 5th time. Sure, he is an eccentric and it's kind of adorable, but on the other hand, it devalues the most important tournament a bit. I can't believe he can't control his time if he is really trying his hardest.
At least he hasn't given an easy win to the two leaders. Can only hope it doesn't happen tomorrow. Nothing against Vlad, but it would be very anticlimactic.
I hope you start feeling better soon !
Thanks for the report...
I'm not a carlsen fan or hate kramnik, but I hope carlsen win this tournament. It's good for chess. People want a fresh WC match.
The tie-break system in this particular concrete case is perfect!... karma!
Kramnik in 2004 drew the match 7-7 with Leko to hold onto his title, without playoffs. He didnt do anything about it to give Leko a fairer shot, so now he can deal with it too.
[DM: Not really, unless you think that just any questionable advantage justifies just any questionable disadvantage. The champion's privilege of keeping the title in case of a drawn outcome was an old one used successfully by several champions, and while it made a certain philosophical sense to require the challenger to beat the champion, I think it was rightly done away with. But the tiebreak here made no sense at all.]
Ivanchuk wasn't white against Carlsen ;-)
I agree with your tiebreak criticisms.
'Most wins' may be fine for other tournaments where the sponsors/organizers want to encourage flashy play (sorry, I meant fighting chess), but it's inappropriate for the World Championship Candidates. As you suggest, in this company going through the whole tournament unbeaten could well be seen as a more impressive feat than grinding out one win more.
Actually Ivanchuk had Black in round 12 against Carlsen; but one could be forgiven for feeling like it was White, so bad was Carlsen's opening.
Perhaps the situation of Kramnik playing Black against Ivanchuk in the last round is not as random as it may seem. Almost all of Ivanchuk's disasters have been with the Black pieces. With White, he has actually been pretty consistent, his only loss being to Aronian in round 3 when he felt he needed a win; which is not the case here. So here's hoping that Ivanchuk maintains his White consistency here.
I fully agree that the tie-break is lousy and that there should be a playoff. Such stupidities are the norm to be expected from FIDE, unfortunately.
In any case a tournament to decide the Candidates is less than ideal as the situation referred to above demonstrates. The correct way to decide the World Championship is to go back to what was done in the Sixties with Quarterfinal, Semifinal, and Final matches of at least 10 games each. With the difference that the World Champion is also obliged to participate in these matches; and which should be held every three years, not two.
The "most wins" tiebreaking method in this event, reminds me of the rather well-known (to us greybeards, anyway) way that the tie was broken in the Portisch-Spassky Candidates match of 1980. The rules--which both players had agreed to before the match--were that if after ten games the score was tied, then the two of them would play a two-game mini-match in an attempt to break the tie. If that didn't do the trick, they would play another two-gamer then. If the match was still tied---after 14 games would, therefore, have been played--then whoever had won the most games with Black would be declared the winner ! If, by some chance, that didn't settle things, then the last player to have won a game would be the winner.
Bottom line ? Portisch won the very first game of the match......with Black ! Spassky won the ninth game, but with White. With the other eight games having been draws, that left the score tied and thus the match went into tiebreak mode. The next four games were draws, so thus Portisch won the match.
Little could anyone have known that that first game, was what ended up deciding the match !
[DM: I remember that match from when I was a kid, and finding the tiebreak there incredibly stupid. Some things never change!]
I hope your back survived the last round - it was a doozy!
If you mean a few rapid games as tiebreaker, I would very humbly like to disagree with you on tiebreakers. While I don't mind these tiebreakers for deciding a normal tournament, to decide the contender for the world champion of classical chess I would like to see classical chess played! Of course I don't think that it is reasonable to expect organizers to set up a match between any two players that end up tied for first (as Kramnik and Carlsen did, albeit not in the way that anyone expected would happen).
[DM: I agree that a rapid playoff isn't best. Maybe two classical games first, and then speed things up. But the bottom line is that a chess contest should be determined by chess, not by random factors or by the organizer's preference for scoring wins over avoiding losses.]
What to do, then? I guess the solution they came up with is to stick with some predetermined tiebreaker, that all players were aware of before starting the tournament. I would've liked the top tie-breaker to be the score against each other in the tournament. I have nothing against fewer losses, although I agree with you in that it is not better than more wins. S-B is another solution. I am sure that no solution would be ideal, but at least it does not force rapids and/or blitz and armageddon.
Note that I don't claim to have the best answer. It is simply a personal opinion, so I hope nobody gets offended by it.
The current tie break is not "random".. the players knew what the rule was going in so they could adjust their play to the rule.
[DM: They adjust by deliberately losing? Brilliant. Anyway, "random" didn't mean "unknown", but rather more like "lacking in any intrinsic logic", "up to the organizer's caprice".]
I think the "champion" keeping his title in case of draw in match situation is actually more ridiculous that here.
The challengers slug it out for weeks using up their novelties, energy, showing potential weaknesses, nerves while the champ sits back and enjoys the show meanwhile working/hiding his own novelties during this time and relaxing saving energy.
Then with all this advantage he still cant knock over the other guy... infact its a draw, if anything, the title should be handed over to the challenger!
[DM: I think the draw-odds rule is a bad one that's deservedly gone, but these aren't the 1950s. No one is sitting back waiting anymore - these guys all have their staffs and their engines, and are mass-producing novelties on a constant basis. And as for resting, Carlsen will have eight months to get back to full strength. He's 22 years old, not 122, so this isn't an issue.]
Hope the back is feeling better, getting better, Dennis. Many thanks for the time spent and the reports you do. They are really quite helpful and marvelous.
I would have liked to have seen K get another shot but Carlsen will be very interesting, also.
Phil
[DM: Yes, I was rooting for Kramnik too. If Anand can pull this one out, that will be colossal for his legacy.]
I have yet to see a tie-break system that doesn't arbitrarily reward something and punish something else -- with maybe the exception of head-to-head games between those that tied for first. If you want a satisfying result some sort of playoff is needed, though if you're breaking a classical chess tie, rewarding rapid and/or blitz prowess (bullet anyone...?) is in itself arbitrarily rewarding something only tangential to the competition.
Still, time is money and it isn't reasonable to spend weeks playing (potentially endless) pairs of classical chess games until someone finally wins. So rapids, blitz, and ultimately armageddon games are an unfortunate practical necessity -- and certainly better than flipping a coin or chosing some statistic to reward arbitrarily.
[DM: Right. But I don't think it will really be "weeks" - the number of decisive games here was something like 40%. Our options aren't limited to Bronstein-Boleslavsky (which was pretty great, really!) and "most wins". I think a pair of classical games, followed if necessary by the playoff system used in the world championship, would be a pretty good compromise and exciting for the fans.]